Love Can Be Made
by Brenna76
Summary: A dark manner. A vampire. A demon. A creation.
1. The Sorta Prologue

**Hey, guys! Back from my little writing break! For those commenters who've been waiting eagerly for another Yullen, here ya' go. **

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Standing in a pasture surrounded by woods in the heart of Transylvania, there stood a mansion. It had recently been rebuilt, with had splendid architecture and state of the art appliances. Not that there were, of course, many people around to appreciate it.

It had three balconies and innumerable windows. No one would be able to say the estate was anything but magnificent. The manor was made over in a gothic design. The entire building was painted a dark, shadowy black that made it stand out heavily during the day, but almost disappear in the dark.

Though it had many windows, it had only two entranceways. One was at the very back of the mansion, it was small and barely ever used. In another day and time, it had been a servant's entrance. It still was, but the days when it was used frequently every day by cooks and maids and butlers and all other servants had long since passed. At the very front of the sweeping mansion were the main doors, two large double doors that were just under twelve feet tall, above which was large carving of a black bat.

However, the mansion also had a darkness about it and one was just as likely to be terrified of the place as they were to be awed by it. An overall sense of foreboding covered the lot which could easily be attributed to its appearance as well as its location. A pitch black mansion, gothic looking, and seemingly empty, nestled in a mostly uninhabited area in Transylvania surrounded by trees. Yeah, it could be that. Anyone would be wary of such a home in such a place.

And it is as it should be since the heavy darkness surrounding the home could as well be attributed to the being(s) that now owned the home. The stately home, which had originally first been built to hold a bustling household now held only two. The (comparatively) new owner of the manor had been just as magnificent as his dwelling. His name was Yu Kanda, a demon of Japanese descent now living in Romania.

A taller than average individual (being 5'9"), the Japanese demon had long, black hair that he often tied up in a ponytail. Possessing a sleek body with a muscular build, he had a figure that many men could wish to have. His face was more of the same, a certain feminine slenderness with attractive but hard, masculine features made up of harsh, angular lines.

The most prominent thing besides his lips which were almost always drawn in a tight frown were his eyes. Steely and sharp, they sliced through things like a sword and regarded people as if they were things. They were colored a dark blue.

Those who found themselves being looked at by these eyes felt as if they had been impaled by his gaze . . . And would no doubt soon be literally impaled by him. He was not a nice demon, if ever there was such a thing.

Digging deeper than his outward appearance, however, he was slightly less magnificent. He had anger issues; serious anger issues. He was known prominently for his blatant aggression. Most of the reputation came from the fact that he never tried to restrain his anger even though he was fully capable of doing so. He was a demon, after all, which was a species not known for their patience or kindness, not that it would have stopped him if he'd been born as a pixie or something.

Kanda was one of the only (if not the only) demons in the world at the time. Perhaps because of this (or simply his nature as a demon since they were really more of a loner species), Kanda was predisposed towards isolationism. Kanda had chosen the manor to be his home several hundred years prior to our story.

The previous story goes that the original owner of the manor had been a nobleman from a dying family that lived there at the time that Kanda showed up in the area. Once very important in society and having a hand in the politics of the nation, the family had since lost all favor outside of itself and had all but petered out simply leaving the homeowner.

The mansion had been part of his family's land, the only part which they had been clinging to after being forced to sell the rest of the land to maintain their lifestyle and appearance. The mansion had been far less grand before Kanda took it over and renovated the place to his liking. In fact, it had been in a state of severe disrepair and was merely hanging on by a thread. He could do much better, Kanda thought.

The stubborn nobleman, named Sheryl Kamelot, had been unwilling to give or sell the home to him so Kanda took it by force. It should go without saying, of course, because of Kanda's demon-ness that he was fully capable of killing someone and that he was also not a very nice man. He got what he wanted and if any lesser creature (that was anything not a demon) tried to keep something he wanted away from him, he would do whatever was in his power to get it.

The fool Kamelot even tried to fight him. A pathetic human, Kanda thought, was no match for him and even though the nobleman had put up a good fight, he was no match for the demon. Lavi would later have to bury his body in their new backyard.

Ah, yes, Lavi. Lavi had been with Kanda for a short time by that point. A vampire and Kanda's slave, he was bound to follow Kanda wherever he went and do whatever Kanda didn't want to, which was a lot. He never seemed to mind, that is, unless he was ordered to do something disgusting. Lavi, in true vampire fashion, drank blood. He was clean and precise, taking only the blood from a body and leaving two small puncture marks near the body's veins.

Being a demon, Kanda's diet was much like a werewolf's in the way that he ate mostly human meat. But unlike werewolves, whereas werewolves ate every day, he ate infrequently. Minimum: a few times a month. Maximum: once a week. (A/N: Maybe you think that sounds like a lot, but think: how many times a week do you eat?)

So, for a few centuries the demon and vampire duo settled in the home. They lived together in that mansion, feeding and living comfortably. But things would soon change when Kanda got greedy and wanted more.

The streets were dark and quiet as he walked down them.

Kanda had found his mind wandering more often during his hunts. Kanda was a greedy man, he would admit it readily. He felt he was entitled to anything he wanted from the world and would have no problem dirtying his hands to get it.

For his whole existence, Kanda had always been striving for a new goal, trying to obtain things. He liked routine but also desired challenges. When he'd wanted a home, he took his mansion. He ran into a vampire and indentured it. He collected books and trophies and struck fear into the hearts of monsters and humans alike.

Truly, there was nothing of value left that he didn't have. What did you strive for when you had everything? Money meant nothing when you didn't have to buy anything.

He had a servant; he needed no more than one and although he would die before admitting it, Lavi was a quite capable worker who excelled at his tasks. He had the stately mansion, too. What was left?

Perhaps nothing. That was a depressing thought to Kanda. Was there really nothing left to achieve in his long life? Some as yet unthought of, unachievable task or item that remained a mystery to Kanda? Something, _anything_ that eluded him?

The sound of his heavy boots plodding down the rain soaked cobblestone filled the otherwise noiseless area. The black haired demon grumbled in annoyance. It wasn't usually this hard to find food, but tonight seemed to be presenting a problem.

He was in a town, Brasov, one of a few small towns in the area. People in these towns tried to be careful; they knew what went bump in the night (so to speak). Few went out at night and they were often armed, not that this presented a problem to Kanda. Even an armed human was nothing to a monster much less a demon; the elite of inhuman species. Besides, there were always some stupid humans going outside at night despite the warnings they were no doubt given by others.

From off in the distance, Kanda could hear the giggling of a female. He had, after all, very excellent hearing. Kanda's fangs elongated and his body tingled as he sensed a meal. Big, black wings reminiscent of a bat's (but not enough to be mistaken for one's) wings grew from his back as he flew up in the air. Though demons were faster than humans on the ground, they could go even faster while flying. The several mile distance was crossed in seconds by Kanda.

When he was nearly to the voice but not quite, he slowed down. Tucking his wings into his back again so that they disappeared, he let himself fall to the ground. His strong legs easily landed in the field and Kanda ventured to find that prey of his. It wasn't long before he stumbled upon a couple laid out on a patch of grass. Apparently on a date, they decided to go to a field and stargaze.

_Looking at the stars; a completely valid reason for risking their lives. _Kanda thought, sarcastically. The young ones were always the stupid ones; the ones that made the needless risks and careless mistakes.

Making sure that his wings were stored away but that his teeth were still elongated and sharp, he stalked up behind them. Taking advantage of the element of surprise, he approached the low-lying male with lightening speed and brought his foot down on the man's ribs, effectively crushing them. He was still alive, although coughing up unhealthy amounts of blood.

His [girlfriend/fiance/whatever] realized what was going on and launched herself onto Kanda's arm in an effort to save her lover; a pathetically flawed action, in Kanda's opinion. Effortlessly, he flung her off him and she flew back, hitting a tree.

_When will humans learn not to fight back? It's all just futile._

A whimpering from behind him brought Kanda's attention to the female who was now trying to crawl away, presumably to get help. Naturally, Kanda couldn't allow that; he'd lose his meal. Stalking over to her without an ounce of sympathy or pity and grabbed her leg, dragging her back to the collapsed male as she screamed and clawed at the ground in an attempt to escape.

Kanda dropped her next to her lover and hovered mercilessly over them both. He consciously blocked out the woman who repeated the word "please" over and over again like a prayer that would save her. It wouldn't; begging never helped anyone live. Then, for the first time, the man's voice spoke, catching Kanda's attention.

"Please. Kill me, if you wish, but spare her." He sounded strangely calm, if not looking slightly scared for the person next to him. Refreshingly, he seemed to have come to terms with his fate, his only concern now on the woman he was with. He knew he wouldn't live.

Having gained the tiniest bit of respect for him (or at the very least, wasn't annoyed by him), Kanda lowered himself to give an audible response to the young man's pleadings. "Can't. I need to feed." The statement as short, blunt and without feeling, but it was leagues better than the wordless killings most of his victims got.

At the mention of feedings, the female beside him barked out a pitiful cry followed by a series of agonized whimpers. The man was more tame, but the woman annoyed Kanda. Her screaming and fussing and crying grated on Kanda's nerves making him anxious to end it already. Noticing the slightest of movements, Kanda reflexively drew his eyes down to the relatively calm young man's hand which was lying on the ground slowly moving towards her twitching form.

In an intrigued but still emotionless manner, he watched the man's hand grasping the woman's, effectively drawing her attention to him and distracting her from the terrifying and murderous being before her. Their eyes locked together and they seemed to share a silent communication in which he seemed to compel her to reach her own state of calm (not for Kanda, but most certainly not going unappreciated by him, either).

The whole exchange was fascinating to Kanda. It was clear that the two shared a powerful connection; one that could and would only be broken by death. "I love you." The young man whispered, obvious love forming in his voice.

The woman's eyes filled with tears and fell uninhibited down her cheeks as a strained but happily nostalgic smile appeared on her lips. "I-I love you too." The lady forced out through her tears.

"You love each other, do you?" Kanda asked, suddenly. He quirked his head to the side as his intense gaze focused on them.

"Y-Yes!" The man answered hurriedly, shaking his head in the affirmative, the woman having not been able to find her voice.

"And your lives without one another?" Kanda queried. Perhaps this is what he has been missing. That mysterious, unattained thing in his life.

"Dismal." The man answered enthusiastically. The female beside him nodded in agreement.

The man had been hoping that by answering his questions, the demon before him would be either grateful or empathetic towards them and (either way) spare their lives. This ray of light called hope was immediately extinguished when the young man's world grew dark.

The dark, empty grassland filled with the endless screams of the young woman who stared in horror at her lover's body. Kanda, having gotten what he wanted from the two, brought his sword down upon her head.


	2. I Don't Have Love

Lavi was dusting the mansion. His current mission was to prevent cobwebs and to eradicate any that managed to crop up. He wasn't especially great at cleaning and, in truth, much of it stemmed from his comfort with uncleanliness. Kanda was, in actuality, the one who wanted the place to be at least somewhat tidy despite himself being a monster.

Lavi thought, cynically, that he might like to know what his fellow vampires (whom he knew in his youth) would think of him if they could but see him now; a terrifying and bloodsucking vampire now acting a resident maid and whipping boy for a demon.

Vampires were social creatures, but avoided demons like the plague. As most supernaturals did. Demons were powerful, aggressive, territorial loners. Anyone with half a brain avoided associating with demons, but then Lavi had always enjoyed going against what was widely considered to be normal behavior.

Still, even he sat back and marvelled sometimes at where his life had brought him. He was a fairly typical vampire a few centuries ago. The only real things he did when he wasn't been busy with his hobby of reading and collecting knowledge were the usual vampiric behaviors.

He found tombs to sleep the day away, avoided demons, and prayed lone humans in the night. He always travelled, never staying in one town for too long, to protect himself from any humans that got it in their heads to try taking another vampire from the world. Once you got used to the motions of it all, the life could get boring. And Lavi was bored.

Then one day, his life changed and here he was.

Lavi, quite delicately, dusted yet another untouched corner of the ceiling. One of the perks of being a vampire was the zero gravity abilities they seemed to gain when hanging upside down. Lavi thought that it was probably a vampiric trait that most vampires didn't appreciate, but he most certainly did.

A loud bang being made by the front doors being violently slammed open and closed alerted Lavi that Kanda was home. The smell of blood and human flesh wafted into the building; undetectable to anything but demons and their "lesser" subclass of vampires.

His master came bearing food.

Dropping carelessly from the ceiling, Lavi rushed to meet Kanda. Having been on the fourth level, he met Kanda on the second floor. What met Lavi was Kanda lugging two bodies behind him; a male's body carried over his shoulder like a sack of rice and the body of a female, missing her head, being dragged behind him.

While he wanted to attach himself to the limp husks and dine immediately, Lavi held himself back noticing something was up with Kanda. Though he seemed like his usual stoic self, he also seemed to be in a strange mood; a bad one.

"Yu? Did something happen?" Lavi asked, worriedly. He did actually care about Kanda... however, if something put him in an even worse mood than usual, the demon in question would no doubt take it out on Lavi.

"Absolutely nothing." Kanda growled, warning Lavi against asking again and Lavi, valuing his life, took the hint. Kanda thrust the headless female body at Lavi. "When you're done drinking, cut it up and store it for later." With that, Kanda turned and walked off, presumably to eat the corpse he still carried over his shoulder.

Lavi silently watched his master's back until it disappeared around the corner. After a second more of that, Lavi ventured to look down at the remains. The body was cold and although it was missing a lot of blood, the wounds had stopped bleeding quite a while ago, sealing the remaining fluid inside the body.

Lavi felt a pang of sadness for the poor woman, whoever she was when she was alive. _She must've suffered. _Lavi thought, looking at where her head had been cleaved off.

The sympathetic thoughts gave way to hunger as Lavi's more monstrous side began to view the body as food. After all, the person who was in that body was no longer there and Lavi was hungry. He leaned down and bit into the body, letting the life giving liquid seep into his mouth. After guiltily draining the body of blood (though it had lost a lot before then so he was still hungry), he dragged it down to the kitchen.

A dingy area, the kitchen was one of the only parts of the mansion that had not been carefully renovated when Kanda took over the estate. Although the kitchen wasn't much to look at, it was useful and had multiple purposes. It contained a fridge, several cabinets, a pantry, two stone countertops and a large wooden table.

Hefting the body up onto the table, Lavi walked to one of the many identical cabinets, taking out a hacksaw and going to work. During the procedure, all Lavi thought about was what was wrong with Kanda.

Even for the Japanese demon, he was very quiet and especially irritable. Anyone other than Lavi wouldn't've noticed, but the red haired vampire knew his master very well. And, having spent several hundred years with the Japanese, Lavi knew what strange behavior from him was.

Lavi finished hacking up the body, draining as much blood as he could from them into containers. Quickly salting the remains to help preserve them for Kanda, he then carried the many severed parts to the pantry and placed them in a dry place. Finally, Lavi took the containers of blood he got from previous bodies for himself from the bodies and placed them in the pantry, as well, in a bucket of ice to freeze them.

Being a vampire, he had higher-than-the-average-human strength so this was an easy task. Mind you, his strength was nothing like that of a full demon like Kanda, but it was still substantial.

Lavi looked up at the ceiling towards the floor that held Kanda's chamber. His eyes dulled as he thought about what could have affected his master so and wondered what the man was doing at that very moment. _Somehow_, Lavi thought, _I don't think Yu is just going to move on from this._

For weeks afterward, Kanda's strange behavior continued. He said little, he ate little and he never left his chambers. The demon who had always hated to partake of leftovers now did only that. He hadn't gone out hunting since the last, when he was put in his strange mood. But what about it had put him in such a mood?

Kanda, too, was contemplating his own behavior after the latest hunt. The mission hadn't been especially difficult and, while the woman he'd killed was very annoying, there had been more unpleasant people Kanda had tasked himself with killing.

It was something about the couple's relationship that affected Kanda in a way he hadn't expected when he'd initially approached them. The way they acted towards each other, the way they looked at each other, the way they needed each other. It made Kanda think of things he wouldn't normally. Kanda didn't have a romantic partner. Fact of the matter was that he'd never had a romantic partner even though he was an undeniably attractive demon.

Though his personality was less smooth than his looks would imply, he would have had no problem getting a partner for himself. Why didn't he have one, then? The answer was that he hadn't wanted one. At least, prior to now, he hadn't. In truth, he found all creatures rather boring and especially the female ones (they all seemed to have an annoying gene in them). Whether they were human or not, they never seemed to interest Kanda and most irritated or angered him to the point that he couldn't stand to be in their presence.

Many creatures, human and otherwise, were afraid of him, as well. Both because of his frightening and controlling personality and the fact that demons were notoriously strong, powerful and vindictive. They were right to be scared. However, Kanda was an envious soul and he wanted most things he didn't have or that others had. It was indeed good that very few things existed that fell under that description, but now Kanda was thinking about something else he didn't have. Love . . . or something akin to it.

It wasn't that the concept had never entered his mind before then, but it had simply never held much weight. The couple he'd killed, though, that had changed it for him. So happy with each other and yet so willing to die for each other, they'd made the concept look far more attractive to Kanda than it had been before. Kanda was sure that it was something he could and should have if humans such as them could attain it.

Kanda had isolated himself during the last few weeks to think about this new development. This wasn't particularly difficult since he lived in a gigantic but empty mansion with only one other occupant. The home itself was away from prying eyes so Kanda had plenty of time.

In the end, he supposed that he shouldn't judge relationships too harshly until he has tried it as well. Convinced he could possibly find something worth having in one such relationship if he were just able to find the right being to partner with, Kanda came to his decision. There was only Lavi and him in their home at the moment and the demon hardly thought that another body would make it any more crowded.

Kanda had never been one for life changing commitments especially if they disrupted his peace. You could even make the claim that he had commitment issues. But, after much thought, he'd decided that he should and would have himself a love. If they displeased him, he could always have Lavi get rid of them or simply push them off to a corner of the mansion and forget of their existence.

Yet there was still the issue that he disliked most creatures on the Earth and had no intention of forcing himself to tolerate being in a relationship with one of said creatures.

Even if he believed there was a chance he could find a preferable one out of the lot (which he didn't) that met his standards (whatever those were, even he didn't know yet), he had no inclination to spend the precious time, energy and patience to go looking for them. If he sent Lavi to do it, then there was no doubt in Kanda's mind that the vampire would come back with every loose, pretty, big busted and most likely woefully stupid woman he came across. Kanda was already ticking in annoyance at the mere thought of it. No. That wouldn't work.

But he might have been onto something by using Lavi. No, he wasn't going to partner with Lavi. Just. No. Still, the vampire demon was perfectly capable of performing detailed projects and Kanda had just had an idea. One that would give him the things that he desired while still not having to deal with outsiders and that, admittedly, made Lavi do all of the work.

Now, all Kanda had to do was place an order for one lover.


	3. Lavi's Marching Orders

"So what did you need me to do for you, master?" Lavi asked, happily, practically bouncing into the room. He was much too pleased to be worried about Kanda's dislike of loud noises.

It had been nearly a month since Kanda had begun acting strangely and had gotten even more reclusive than usual. The mansion's blood reserves were nearly depleted (not a pleasant thing for the only vampire in the immediate area) and he'd barely been able to see his master who he quite inexplicably seemed to think of as a friend. Even when Lavi would see him, Kanda would refuse to speak, instead opting for an almost sullen silence.

Less than ten seconds ago, Kanda broke his silence by ringing the bell in his room for his servant. Even with his vampire speed, said vampire ran especially quickly to his master's quarters. Because of this, he was out of breath upon arrival to his master's current location. (A/N: Yes, yes, vampires can breathe. I will get more on that later.)

Raising his hand, blithely, Lavi knocked lightly on the grand door to the demon's room. "Master, I'm here!" With the obligatory declaration out of the way, Lavi proceeded into the room without waiting for an invitation.

Kanda was there, as he had been, standing before his bedroom window. The only one in the otherwise closed off room, like everything else in the mansion it was especially large. Probably big and low enough for two grown men to stand side by side in it and jump. Kanda stared out of the window, his back facing Lavi and the door. Kanda's hair was down and his arms hung by his sides.

Because it was night time (seeing as the two creatures were rather nocturnal), the moonlight filtered in through the open window and painted itself delicately over the demon. It really made his figure stand out in the very dark room. It was at that moment that Kanda turned around. He looked as moody as he had before to Lavi, but the vampire's keen eyes saw the particular kind of calm that comes to a person when they've happened upon some kind of resolve.

Suddenly coming back to himself and deciding to act at least somewhat like a servant should towards their master, Lavi bowed his head lightly. "What do you wish?" He asked.

"Usagi." Kanda used the nickname he'd given Lavi long ago. "Would you say that I'm successful?" Kanda asked in an offhand manner.

Taken aback by this strange question, Lavi tried to focus on answering. "Well, yes."

Lavi hadn't even closed his mouth after uttering the short sentence, before Kanda asked another question. "And would you say I have everything?"

"Well, you have your solitude, a ready supply of food, a grand home and a servant to take care of it for you." Lavi gave a wry smile at that last part. "What more could a demon want?"

"Quite. What else could a _demon _want? Tell me, Lavi. Do you enjoy your occasional romantic rendezvous with humans?" He asked, clearly alluding to something.

"I . . ." Lavi uncomfortably eyed the demon, unsure whether or not he was in trouble. "Master, you said that it was okay if I sometimes wanted to-" Kanda cut him off right then.

"Yes, yes. Who you seek pleasure from is of no concern to me, if you are not gone for long." Lavi's shoulders relaxed marginally, but his brows knitted in confusion.

"So what might the problem be then, Master?" He inquired.

"I have begun to wonder why I have not pursued a similar relationship with someone." The demon ignored the way his servant's eyes widened in surprise. "I have decided that it is because I deserve better than the filth that already exists."

"Um . . ." Lavi started, but he really did not know what to say.

"The solution to this problem is obvious. I require a lover to be made to my specifications, only then will my perfect partner exist. You will be the one to do this."

"Create? You wish for me to create a partner for you?" Lavi checked, just to make sure he wasn't hearing things.

"You believe you cannot do it?" Kanda growled, clearly communicating to Lavi that "no" was not a viable answer.

"Well . . . as you know, I have much experience in science." Lavi proceeded carefully. "As for creating sentient life, the library contains some tomes relating to the subject.

"Excellent." Kanda said, pleased. "Be quick about it, but be thorough. Before you get started, go and hunt us some dinner. I imagine we have nothing left in the kitchen by now and I am hungry."

It was an unusual request.

Kanda did most of the hunting, leaving Lavi in the mansion to perform his chores. Lavi had actually gotten rather unused to hunting since indenturing himself to Kanda. The vampire wanted to ask him why, but the demon still seemed to be not in the best mood and he had a habit of becoming violent when annoyed.

So, Lavi bit his tongue, bowed to his master, and took his leave. Lavi stepped out of the room, letting out a tired breath as soon as the door was closed. Yu probably heard the sound anyway, but at least he didn't see him make it.

Lavi felt like he had been given an impossible task. If he didn't create this perfect creature to make Yu happy, he knew his next task would be to dig two graves; one for his creation and one for himself. The redheaded vampire shivered at the thought, failure was not an option, then. Lavi headed towards the window at the end of the hallway.

He had planning to do, but first . . .

The vampire jumped out of the window, turning into a vampire bat almost instantly.

. . . he needed to get dinner for him and his master.

On the bright side, perhaps he could find something he could use on the hunt. Anyone who knew anything about creating life knew that you couldn't create something from nothing; he had to start from somewhere.

Maybe he could find some parts.

"Maria, I do not think we should be doing this." The blonde girl whispered to her friend, glancing around the small shop they had just broken into.

"Such a worrywart, Elena, really. Calm yourself, we will just take a few things and leave." The brunette whispered, as she began foraging through the apothecary.

"I still do not understand why you cannot simply ask your father for more money?" Elena worriedly asked.

"He believes medicine to be a frivolous purchase when we have our weeds in the yard." Maria irritatedly replied.

"It does not seem like a very well stocked shop, look." Elena pointed to a pedestal that was supposed to hold a jar of something, but was empty.

"Huh." Maria murmured, reading the label on the empty pedestal. "Ch-lore-oh-form? Chloroform? Chloroform. I wonder what that is."

Elena's reply was cut off by a sweet-smelling rag clamping down over her nose and mouth. She tried to shriek, but not a sound made it out through the thick material. He small hands scrambled to pull the larger hand from her face, but it was too strong for her. Like trying to lift a wagon.

Against her will, her blue eyes began to lose focus and her eyelids started to droop. She tried to fight it, she had to warn Maria, she had to warn her friend! That was he last thought as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Lavi caught the young female's body as it crumpled. He quietly lowered the lithe thing to the ground. Her friend was still crouching with her back to them and gazing at the display case. Dropping the used rag soaked with chloroform onto the prone body on the floor, he made his way over to the other with light steps.

"Do you think if I smashed this case, someone would hear?" Maria asked, still not looking away from the case.

"I don't know." Lavi nonchalantly replied, the girl's head whipping around at the sound of his voice. "Let us find out."

Wasting no more time, the vampire took hold of the young lady's head and bashed it into the case, breaking the glass. Maria's bloody body fell to the floor. Dead. Instantly.

Lavi took a look at his bloody, sweet-smelling hands, then at the bodies on the floor. "I am going to have to drag these all the way back home." The redhead sighed, mournfully and got ready to head back.

At least he and his master would have a large meal to show for it.

Lavi knew his master liked his food as fresh as he could get it, but it would not be long until the one young woman woke after he finally got back to the mansion, unless he dosed her again. He needed to get her secured before she began to cause trouble wanting to go home and all that.

He left her friend's body outside his science lab, a dark room built of rock underneath the rest of the mansion, a locked steel door separating it from the rest of the mansion. Unlocking the door, Lavi proceeded to carry the unconscious girl into the laboratory, all the way to the examination table. Taking her off his shoulder, he placed the living body on the table and used the belts connected to the table to tie down her arms and legs.

Now, she could fight all she wanted and she would not be able to get away. He exited the lab, closing and locking the heavy door behind him. Once the door was closed, no sound could leave the room; he would not want to disturb his master with his experimenting. He didn't think he would survive that.

Hefting up the dead body, he began to drink the blood from it right there in the stairway. When there was little more than a pint left, he stopped. Drinking from dead bodies was problematic, to say the least, but he had grown used to dealing with it; Yu rarely captured prey alive. He mused on this as he brought the body to his master.

"Just one?" Kanda asked when he saw the offering. It wasn't a judgemental question, just curious.

"For now." Lavi stated, handing it over into Kanda's arms. "I have another, but it is in the lab at the moment.

Kanda raised a brow in silent question. Lavi hastened to answer. "I thought the human had pretty hands and eyes, features that would be useful in the making of your . . . lover. She possesses light blue, almond-shaped eyes and small, delicate hands, without blemishes. Do you find this appealing?"

He added the last part, worriedly. The vampire was more than aware that he and Kanda did not have the same tastes. Kanda looked thoughtful before nodding, regally. "It is a good starting point. You've completed your tasks for the night, you may sleep."

The vampire's green eyes drifted over to the window of Kanda's room, its heavy curtains drawn off to the sides. Indeed, the sun was beginning to rise and he would need to go to sleep if he wanted to be able to make proper use of the night.

"But should I not take care of the girl first?" Lavi asked, thinking of how she would be left, scared and alone, all day until he got the chance to deal with her.

Kanda, not having a sympathetic bone in his body, merely huffed in agitation. "Is she secured?" Kanda asked, piercing cerulean eyes peered right at him.

"Yes, but-"

"Then it can be taken care of tonight, day is the time for sleep. That is an order." Allowed no further argument, Lavi nodded and left.

The redhead made his way to the kitchen, hooked himself to the ceiling, and closed his eyes. Lavi slowly nodded off, thinking about his plans to create this new being for Kanda and what it would be like.


	4. Business Begins

That night, Lavi grabbed the very last bit of blood from the fridge and tossed it back as fast as he could. Making a sentient being would be a no doubt lengthy process and his master would not appreciate him taking his sweet time with it.

He had better start soon so he would have something to tell Yu when the demon asked about his progress. He then headed down to the laboratory; the sooner the girl was dead, the sooner he could replenish the blood stores.

As soon as Lavi slid open the heavy metal door to the lab, a small whimpering sound met his ears. The girl on the exam table was struggling desperately against her bindings; desperately but weakly.

That was an understandable and fairly average response to going without food or water for upwards of ten hours. The fact that she was still fighting it at all was an impressive testament to either her nerve or her fear. Lavi wished he could reward it, but he had promised his master a pair of eyes and hands, so he needed them.

The vampire's shoes made a dull thudding sound on the thick wooden floor, quickly drawing the attention of the girl on the table. Teary and downright _terrified _eyes honed in on his vampiric form, looking scared and (oddly enough) relieved, in equal measure. _Probably glad for any company after being left alone for so long, _Lavi thought.

She stared at him for a time, tears falling from his eyes as he stepped towards her.

"Please!" She burst out, ceasing her struggles for a moment. "Please help me!" She pleaded.

"How would I do that?" Lavi casually questioned, feeling his more sadistic personality come out to play. She looked surprised at the question, but still a little hopeful.

"Get these cuffs off of me. There must be something in here that you can use to break them!"

"Hm . . ." Lavi hummed to himself, piercing green eyes coldly taking in the poor wretch. He took up the spot in front of a cabinet that he knew had most of what he needed. He opened the cabinet and began to pull out certain items and placing them on a cart with wheels.

Lavi really did appreciate the many implements that his master had paid good money for. A metal cart, for example, which was easy to clean, hard to stain, and ridiculously efficient to move about the room. He didn't answer the young woman until she spoke to him again.

"Are you looking for the right tool?" She asked. A look over his shoulder allowed Lavi to see that she was leaning up off the table as well as she could and craning her neck to see what he was doing.

He deigned to answer this time. "Oh, yes, I am looking for the right tools. Something _sharp _certainly is necessary." He forebodingly murmured just loud enough for her to hear, a smirk tugging at his lips. It seemed Deak was coming out in full force.

Unbeknownst to him as he searched, the girl relaxed in her restraints.

Finally, someone had come for her, Elena thought. He must be from the village. Maybe her father sent him . . . or Maria. She did not know how long she had been there, but she had spent a good part of it worrying about her friend and what might have become of poor Maria, but if this young man was here, perhaps only Elena herself had been taken.

With absolute certainty, she knew that this young man would have been more relieved to see her if they had cause to worry of her safety. Yes, Maria must have been left behind or else imprisoned in another dank chamber, as well as she was.

The boy did seem strange, but not in a way that she could very well place. Elena had not been around many men in her short life, the most close members of the opposite sex being her family. She had seen and spoken to men outside of her family in passing, of course, such as elderly shop owners and associates of her father that came to the house.

Other than those instances, she could only remember troubling herself with her father and elder brothers, of which she had three; Charles, Alexander, and Andrei. They were much older than she, but had yet to be wed. Elena and her father hoped that Elena should be wed soon, most preferably to a man of honorable repute, as to not sully her family name.

Elena's mother had died ten years ago, but one of the only memories she had was of her mother rocking in a chair, bathed in sunlight from a nearby window and doing her darning work. The little Elena, the very picture of her mother with the older woman's face and golden hair, but with her father's eyes, laid at her mother's feet. Elena remembered staring up at her mother with awe and love as the elder woman worked.

"My sweet, beautiful child." Her mother's lyrical voice had toned on that warm evening. "In life you will learn a great many lessons, some easy, some hard. One of the hardest lessons some girls learn is that of their own body. The most precious object every woman possesses is her body, but the body may lie.

It may urge a young lady to give herself to a man before marriage and this pull, this lure, may seem too impossible to ignore. A false love that cannot be trusted, giving into this urge will prove to be the ruin of the young lady's future. 'In purity excelith she, just like an angel bright.' In purity only can a lady be married, remember that, Dear."

"Yes, Mama." Elena had said, holding the well-meaning words close to her heart forever.

Because of this memory, it was not only her father's and her brother's protectiveness that kept her away from boys her age. She was deeply determined to treasure herself and keep members of the opposite sex at arm's length.

Maria was her best friend and had been for many years. Yet, they could not be more different from each other. While Elena was quiet and withdrawn, determined to be the perfect daughter and one day be the perfect wife, Maria seemed to exist outside of herself. She took better to boys than she did girls, flirting and leading them on as she breathed, with no intent behind it.

Maria lied to her father and fought with him and broke rules at the slightest opportunity. Though she would never say it to her dear friend, Elena knew it was only a matter of time before Maria embarked upon the most serious of transgressions; premarital relations. No man would marry Maria if there were question regarding her virtue, but they may procure her to their dark purpose without intent to marry.

Elena did not want that to happen, but Maria rarely listened to good advice, so all she could do was watch, dismayed, as dear Maria moved towards her miserable end. Elena's mother truly had been right.

_This man, though . . ._ Elena thought, coming back to the present. He could possibly be the answer to the long-asked question of who Elena would marry.

A protective knight like the kind she had ready about in her story books would surely be a worthy husband. He seemed a bit withdrawn from her, but he might be all the better for it. Certainly a might better than the men her brothers had told her about, who smiled like snakes a dripped poisonous words tasting of honey.

No deceit to be had from this one, though. Just like when her mother met her father.

"Have you found the right tool yet?" She called to the man, craning her neck to get a better look at what he was doing. She tried to make sure her voice sounded sweet. She couldn't see what he was doing very well, since he had his back turned to her, but it looked like he was pulling various tools out of a cabinet and placing them on some kind of rolling cart.

The red haired man (and how strange and rare that hair color was) stopped his sorting as she spoke. Then, without turning around, he answered in a calm and deliberate tone. "About ready. I think I see what I need in the far back corner. It will be just a moment longer and then you'll be freed. Best to relax, my lady."

Taking his words to heart, Elena let out a relieved breath and indeed did relax back on the table. She would be freed. She would be out of harm's way with someone to protect and guide her and from there, she could find Maria (hopefully unhurt) and they could go home then. She could see her father and brother and maybe introduce them to her savior.

He was strange, she would admit. People in her village didn't like things that were strange or different, but at least he looked strong and protective. That would do. A metallic clinking and the sounds of footsteps coming closer drew her attention back to the man. He was holding a sharp tool in his hand as he came steadily towards her, his green eyes transfixed on her form.

Well, no need to wonder if he was interested in her, it seems. They would have a happy life together. And, oh good, he had the tool he was looking for. Now he could free her and they could be off and, actually . . .

Elena tilted her head slightly and peered closer at the tool in his hand, scrutinizing it. She would admit to not being well-versed in tools of any kind that weren't widely used in the kitchen, but it was a strange piece of machinery. It was small, much smaller than the knives her brothers and fathers used, but that wasn't a fair comparison since it wasn't a knife.

Actually, she really hadn't the slightest what it was. It had a long, slim metal handle with two clamps closer to the end of it. At the end, it formed a circle with a deep hole in the middle.

Hmm . . . . it really looked like a corer of some kind and now that she thought of it, that seemed that was most likely what it was. The last thing she noticed about its appearance was the spikes ringing around the edge. Perfect for cutting if it really was a corer. An interesting technology, to be sure, but . . .

She squinted at it harder. It looked completely useless for cutting her free. The cutting blades around the edges are fine for a corer, but would be difficult to use for anything else. Why he choose to use that over any other tool? It didn't make any sense . . .

He stopped beside the table she was strapped to and just looked down at her. She shifted nervously but couldn't move very much, she was strapped down too tight. Something was wrong with this picture, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Are you going to cut me loose?" She had meant the question to be rhetorical, just to urge him forward with the weapon. After all, of course he would cut her free and that would be it. Of course.

Yet, her tone of voice came out much different than she'd intended. Instead of confident and knowing, it came out as worried and insecure. An actual question. And he gave an actual answer.

"No. I was never intending to do that."

Numb seconds ticked by. He didn't say anything, she didn't say anything. Nothing was said.

"No." She breathed, at last. "No. No, you can't mean that." She sounded surprisingly pleading to her own ears.

"See, I need you for something." He stated coldly, his voice dead.

"W-What?" Elena gasped, her voice shuddering. Did he want from her what men normally wanted from _Maria_? She wasn't like that! Her hands trembled in their restraints.

"I need parts, of course." He stated. "Your eyes, in particular." He cocked his head to the side and took in the sight of her strapped down arms, gaze analytical like a doctor's. "Maybe your hands, too."

_W-What? No-That-What? _"What?" That was the only word that could make it past her trembling lips.

"Hmm . . ." The man hummed. "You're pretty slow on the uptake, aren't you? I need your body parts, my lady. You also need to be alive when I take them, really. Freshness of the parts is very important if I'm to make another person out of them . . ."

"Another . . . person . . ?" Her voice cracked, her eyes widening in horror. This was a nightmare! It had to be! It had to-

Unwillingly, and oh how she did try to fight it, her eyes fell back to the tool in the redhead's hand. _Corer. _Oh lord.

"Let's get started, shall we? The procedure had been put off for long enough." The dead green eyes sent such a thrill through her as she had never felt before. He advanced on her.

No! No!" She let out the wail that was almost an inhuman screech. She meant to tug wildly on her bonds, but it felt like she hadn't eaten in so long that her arms barely obeyed her enough to twitch. Even crying out felt like it took her last reserves of energy to do and she felt a tear slide down her cheek, followed by more.

She-She wasn't ready. Of God, she wasn't ready!

The horrifying cutting device was placed over her left eye. Her left eye was forced to stare at the inside of the cold metal contraption, while her right eye flickered to and away from the man's face. She couldn't look at him long, his features were unsettlingly blank.

With a surprising, sudden, sharp force, the hand holding the eye corer jabbed down and no one but a dark demonic figure several floors up in the mansion heard the blood curdling screams of pure anguish that came from the basement that night.


	5. Slowly Coming Together

Lavi placed the jar holding the two beautiful, light blue eyes on a clean shelf in the basement of his residence. The orbs were suspended in a fluid that would keep them perfectly preserved for, really, as long as he needed. Lavi placed the pair of delicate, barely scratched hands that he'd cut off at the wrists into an ice bath.

He turned around and looked at the rest of the mutilated body he'd carefully carved at for an hour, only dead about a minute. He would have to throw it away somewhere, maybe into a ravine or perhaps a cemetery would be more apt. Put it with the rest of the forgotten, rotting bodies.

Normally, he'd want to save the body, preserve it for his master to eat the flesh over time, but the other woman's body would provide more than enough for that. Preserving this one's leftovers would just be pointless. Besides, he'd gotten what he wanted from her. Lavi glanced once more at the eyes and hands before turning to leave.

Lavi headed back up to the upper levels of the house. It was sad and all about the young lady he'd just tortured and killed, but needs must. She was the victim, her pain had been irrelevant. He wasn't sadistic, he just didn't care.

As he slid through the doorway of the mansion library, Lavi saw his master reading on the dark red lounge stationed a couple feet away from the doorway. Kanda looked up from the tone and arched a brow at the red headed vampire. "What was that screaming I heard? I assume you had a good reason to bring back live prey?"

"I was harvesting parts for that partner of yours." Lavi replied.

"Lover." Kanda corrected, sharply.

"Right, lover. None should ever make the mistake of thinking you have an equal." Lavi commented, dryly.

"I trust you didn't take everything you needed from the one one body." Kanda checked.

"Of course, Yu. I know you have high standards and no one perfect person exists. I chose the best parts, I'll get the rest later."

"Good." Kanda replied, a glowing recommendation from him. Apparently having decided that the conversation was over, Kanda turned his attention back to the tome and left Lavi to his own devices. Lavi proceeded further into the library and began sorting through the shelves for the right book.

He had done plenty of reading on the relatively-unknown science of body reanimation. He had an eidetic memory and could easily recall anything he had ever read, no matter how long ago he had read it, but there was one aspect of his task that he hadn't read about. All the books he'd been able to find that referenced bringing cadavers to life assumed that the body would be whole and relatively new. Ah, here it was!

His thin, tanned fingers wrapped around the spine of the book he'd wanted, but hadn't yet read. _Sewing: How To Neatly Sew Any Material._

Lavi and (to an extent) his master had the habit of collecting several books across a wide variety of topics. This one in particular was the only one they had about sewing and Lavi definitely needed that to accomplish his goal, but he could admit that the title almost certainly referred to common sewing materials like cotton and leather.

Lavi sighed and placed the book under his other arm. _I'll just have to hope that these techniques can be applied to stitching limbs back onto a body. It would be so much more time consuming to locate a medical journal with that information. _Of course, Kanda couldn't have gotten him all the resources he would need before or when he gave Lavi his body-creation task.

Of course.

Lavi paged through the sewing book as he sat on a tombstone, taking in the relevant information and skipping through the rest. Far off in the distance, on the opposite side of the graveyard if he wasn't mistaken, came the distinct sound of shovels tunneling into cold earth.

In Transylvania, the weather was cold, dim and gloomy all year around and they sometimes got snow. However, it was not so cold this time of year that the ground could not be dug into, it was just that the digger could expect some resistance every time they heaved their shovel back to have another go. A human better have some powerful force behind their thrust if they want to make headway in their digging this night, as it sounds like these humans do.

He flipped the page calmly. If his expectation of their progress had any bearing on reality, they still had aways to go before he could comfortably step in.

_Following undertakers is exhausting_, Lavi thought, mildly. _Nevermind. I think the best sewing method would be the one used to bind leather, though I'll have to be more gentle than the author of this book is. I don't need that much pressure to punch through flesh, even after rigor mortis. _

The sounds of two shovels being tossed onto the grass (most sounds were unmistakable, in Lavi's opinion) caused his head to snap up in the direction he knew they came from. _The time has come, _Lavi mentally hummed.

He marked the page he'd been on and placed it carefully on a nearby tombstone. He slowly stood up and then, within a second, took off at a sprint. The vampire felt there was no point in being quiet in his approach. All the hard ground and moist grass would make that near impossible, even at a leisurely pace.

The humans naturally heard his approach before they saw him. One was standing in the freshly dug grave, while the other had been standing over it by the body. While the first human, upon hearing something running towards them, panicked and desperately tried to crawl out of the grave without his partner's help, the other stooped down and armed himself with a shovel.

That gave Lavi the time he needed to make up the distance between them, leap the grave, and grab onto the shovel. The human might have been able to fight him off if the vampire hadn't waited until they'd spent upwards of an hour exerting themselves with the grave digging. Those who did that type of work in graveyards tended to be stronger than many other humans and had decent stamina, even compared to some supernatural creatures.

In all likelihood, the one with the shovel could have held his own against Lavi just until his partner managed to stumble out of the grave and then the vampire would have been at quite a disadvantage, but Lavi hadn't lived this long by not thinking his kills through. No bodies left behind, no witnesses, be careful when taking on more than one; humans had the unfortunate habit of forming groups.

These were the rules he'd lived by for some time and they served him well. Both humans were pretty tired from their recent activities, both caught off guard, and one was physically trapped like a caged rat. So, it was only with slight exertion that Lavi wrestled the shovel out of the man's hands and used it to clock him over the head.

Damn. Not enough force in the heat of the moment, would need more to cause permanent damage . . .

After thinking such, Lavi quickly heaved the shovel over his head and bashed it repeatedly into the downed man's skull.

"Raph!" The human in the grave cried out to his friend in horror. Lavi didn't stop until he saw brain tissue. With his strength, it only took a few hits. Turning to the other human, which by this point had barely managed to heft his upper body out of the grave without assistance.

Lavi swung the shovel up over his head, ready to spade it down into the guy's hand, but the second grave digger saw him coming. In a last burst of panic-fueled adrenaline, the worker threw the rest of his body up onto the grass and quickly rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding getting spaded in a place even more unpleasant than his hand.

As Lavi went to bring up the shovel again, sure the man would try to scramble up to his feet, the man instead kicked out at the handle of the shovel. The force of the kick as well as Lavi's firm grip on the lower part of it caused the shovel handle to snap, the metal end of the implement going flying onto the grass behind him. Then, the human dared to scramble to his feet and took off running back towards town.

Normally at this point, Lavi would've given chase and tackled the human, then try to bite them. He generally went to a great deal of effort to not leave breathing victims, but it wasn't really done to silence the humans, as such. Missing humans and found human bodies signalled a monster's presence well enough, even with all witnesses eliminated.

No, the real reason he normally went to such lengths to stop escaping humans was that those who survived once got better at it later. That's how lifelong vampire hunters, among other annoyances, are born. They were attacked but not killed and since resolved to be an absolute pain to monsters like him.

At that moment, though, Lavi was more or less frozen as he watched the human stagger off into the forest between the cemetery and the town, maybe to get help or perhaps to just go home and have a lie down. Part of the vampire's state was due to shock; the human was better at fighting than anticipated and didn't react the way most humans would have.

However, some of Lavi's lack of movement was due to his own choice rather than shock. The rest of him let the guy go, feeling a small amount of respect growing from the disappeared human. It was stupid, he knew, and against his own rules of conduct, but Lavi wanted to see what the man would become, what he would do with his life from here on.

Stay as he had been or chart a new course? Becoming angry and emboldened by the brush with death or withdraw into himself in fright? (Somehow, he doubted this man would become some meek little hideaway after this.) Though, he supposed he would never see this man again to find out.

Lavi would freely admit that he considered his sense of curiosity to be his biggest strength and his greatest weakness. Lavi turned back to the felled human and the fresh corpse behind him.

Gravediggers were a strange breed of human. They were not particularly well-trained in much of anything besides taking care of the corpses entrusted to them and, sometimes, they weren't even very good at that. These people tended to be of the lower classes, although that did not mean they were all members of the absolute bottom of society. It just meant that anyone who _could _get a better job _did_.

All humans (but especially gravediggers, considering the prevalence of it in their lives) were aware of the extreme threat level posed by creatures of various species stalking the night for human flesh. The daytime wasn't strictly safe, especially for lone humans outside of their towns, but the night is when most creatures were not only awake but also comfortable to stalk for victims. Night represented safety for monsters and danger for humans, which Lavi thought was rather ironic a division.

Gravediggers made a career of going out at night when no one else dared to do the same. The physiques of those in this profession usually took one of two forms: waifish and thin from hunger or muscular and enduring from the physical conditioning of the job. Even the gangly ones were stronger than a human of their size and food intake not in the same profession. It _was_ a physically demanding job that, at moments, needed to be witnessed to be believed.

They were very strange people mentally, as well. Some people, especially the younger adults, just did stupid things while still knowing the consequences. Yet, few made a career out of it and as a general rule: the older humans got, the more protective they were about their own safety.

This was precisely what made gravediggers and their entire profession so strange, so ghoulish (so to speak).

They continually went out at night, at times alone, with human remains. As if they themselves were not enough of a lure for any creature looking for a treat, they had to have another possible treat in the form of recently deceased bodies with them. Their god help them if the body was in the process of becoming a vampire or ghoul and no one noticed. That happened sometimes.

Not all in the gravedigger and similar professions died, but not all of them lived, either. Diligence and pairs is what saved most of them. Luck, too.

Likewise, sometimes it was just bad luck that felled the men, like this one. Lavi would drink his fill from the man he'd killed, but he'd chosen this pair of workers for one reason and one reason alone; the body they were supposed to be burying was visually appealing. Very appealing.

Had the body been unappealing on the whole, it would have neither caught nor held Lavi's attention and this man would have lived. It was just the guy's bad luck that Lavi was in the market for a good-looking body and that he had a demanding master. That body was quite something, too.

The body was clearly that of a teenage boy, somewhere around the age of thirteen or fourteen. Recently deceased, smelling to be about four days dead. The features were the typical amount of soft and delicate of that age range.

It seemed the boy died at the perfect time, another year or two and his coming of age would have made his features more drawn and angular. Harsher. That is a distinctly unattractive trait in most people, Yu didn't count.

The deceased had soft brown hair and he would assume brown eyes, although the lids had been closed as long as he had seen the body (good, he couldn't use it if it reanimated) so he had not seen the eyes yet to confirm that. It was just that people with brown hair quite often had brown eyes accompanying them, so it was a same assumption to make.

The boy's height had been typical for his age, not especially short or irregularly tall. Of course, he was quite short compared with someone even just a few years older. The lips and skin were pale with death, but they couldn't have been more than a few shades lighter in life.

The body wasn't perfect. The hands were too small and marked up from what had to have been his daily labors. The legs were too muscular for the rest of the delicate and almost starved looking figure. Other than that, Lavi had stumbled upon a real time-saver in the looks department.

The hair was soft and curved delicately around the heart-shaped face, even if it had clearly not been well-cared for (in keeping with the theme of the rest of the body). Which made sense. Humans that were not part of the upper classes, especially the hardworking classes like this body was probably from, did not have the time or respect for their bodies enough to care for their looks more than was necessary.

The lips were on the thinner side, but not so much as to cause a problem. The eyes were not the normal almond-shaped kind often connected with the image of beauty. However, when opened, they should be large and imploring, pleasantly showing off the eyes Lavi had picked out to perfection.

As he thought, the facial features were youthful and still retained some of their baby-softness. Overall, quite pleasing.

Yu would notice the structural issues with the thighs and hands, so Lavi would have to improve those before bringing life to the body.

He'd gotten a good start on that by procuring an alternate pair of eyes and hands _and _brushing up on his sewing, so all he really needed now was a fitting pair of legs. . . . Maybe Yu would want this boy's ill-proportioned pair to munch on while he awaited his love . . . Then he could get this body-reanimating party started!

Regardless, the risk wasn't high, but Lavi still decided he should play it safe and leave soon. He'd strengthen himself in this man's body, grab the boy's body, detour around to grab his book, and head back to the mansion. As much as he wanted to do it now, he would wait until he was home to inspect the boy's body on a closer level for other issues and impediments. For now . . .

Lavi stepped towards the former gravedigger's body and leaned down towards it, keeping an ear out for danger. He drank.

* * *

**A/N: So Allen's body is introduced into the story, now, barring the distinctive blue eyes that will have to be plonked into his skull by Lavi. If the idea of Kanda potentially getting a hard-on for someone who used to be a corpse, especially one that had the body and brain of a thirteen or fourteen year old boy and the eyes and hands of an innocent girl tortured and killed specifically to get them is disturbing and off-putting . . . good. That was entirely the intention. **

**In case you haven't noticed Lavi and Kanda aren't written to be evil, as such, but still don't have the conventional morality as other people and that extends to more than killing. Plus, you know, the ostensibly pseudo victorian time this is set in makes things like age more trifles than stumbling blocks. **

**Anyone (including that one lovely commenter) who read the girl getting killed last chapter and didn't know how to feel about it, that was also intentional (I know, I state the obvious). Gruesome and uncomfortable scene, but she wasn't exactly a perfect saint who engendered pure sympathy, either. That is a specific theme I'm going for in this fic, but you'll find it in my fics across the board. No one's pure evil, no one's pure good. Not everyone's acts are justified or even understandable, but there's always something more going on with my people, their histories, their minds. That's where a lot of the fun with writing comes from, for me, and I hope it's fun to read!**

**Got any questions, ask them! Alright, monologue over . . . for now . . . I'll be back-**


	6. Loading

_He'd been hunting in a village that habitually hunted vampires. He'd been ignorant of that fact when he'd entered the territory and started hunting, but he was soon informed. _

_Hunted viciously through a clearing by a large group of angry men with weapons, he'd been desperate for a place to hide. As it neared the dawn, he managed to kill some of his closest pursuers and barricaded himself in a crypt. _

_Outside, the group gathered and proceeded to try breaking down the opening that he had blocked off. He pressed himself against a tomb in the center of the crypt and tried not to weep. He was surrounded. _

_Soon enough, even if he still had hours left to live, the humans would find their way inside and drag him out into the burning light of day. He would be incinerated. _

_He hunched in on himself, deciding to feel the full brunt of his mourning, if only for the moment. When the humans would finally break in, he was prepared to collect himself, holding his back straight as an arrow, and face his death like a man. That was, of course, when his strong vampiric hearing honed in on the slight, very slight, sound of wings flapping. _

_And it came from somewhere behind him. _

_Another flap and he spun around, staring into the shadowy corners of the building he had ignored up until then. He could see it, now that he knew something __**was**_ _there. A dark figure, looked tall, with pale features and dark hair. _

_His eyes scanned the person making their home in the shadows, only able to see them at all thanks to his spectacular night vision. His wide, green eyes honed in on the feathery, black wings protruding from the figure's back. He stumbled back at the sight. Those wings were unmistakable. _

_A demon. _

"_What are you doing here?" __**Lavi**_ _asked, his voice steady despite his situation. _

"_Watching the show." The Voice smirked, teeth glittering. _

"_How long have you been here?" Lavi tried. He couldn't have been here long, he was sure he would have noticed sooner. _

"_Not long." The demon acknowledged, lifting a sleek arm to point towards the ceiling where lay a small skylight. Lavi had seen it, but had written it off as an escape route. He could climb up walls and on ceilings, so he could get up and through the skylight easily, but it did him little good afterwards. _

_He'd then be out in the field, at the mercy of the human mob. "What do you want?" Lavi demanded, irritated. Did the demon want to kill him himself or just watch him be torn apart by humans and sunlight for his entertainment? _

"_Well, it just so happens," The demon said, moving from the shadows into the soft light of the rising sun. "That I am in a position to help you." His canines glittered. _

"_And you would? Help me?" Lavi was suspicious. _

"_I would." The demon smirked harder. "Call it a debt." _

"_A debt." Lavi repeated, nonplussed. The demon swept his arms open almost as wide as his wings. _

"_Endenture yourself to me and I'll save you now. Willingly give the rest of your life to me and you'll have a life to live after tonight." The smirk was sharp like a blade. _

_It was over then, wasn't it? What else could he say, except-_

Eyes blinked open lazily, the memory jarring to them even as their brain struggled to begin functioning. This memory was not theirs. They didn't know how they knew this, but they did. It was someone else's memory. In his head. Huh. What was it doing there?

What was _he _doing here?

The ceiling above him was dark a chipped, made of stone. He tried to lift his body off of the surface he was laid out on, but found doing so impossible. His upper and lower back ached terribly, his limbs sluggish and weak. He could barely order their movement anywhere, much less upwards against the gravity that pulled him tighter to the table.

Who was he? What was he doing here? He felt more than saw his fingers twitch sporadically and his head flopped to the side. It seemed to be the only way he could look around for the moment.

Tables. Cabinets. Glasses and jars, some holding solids and powders, others holding liquids.

He didn't know how long he laid there. It felt like a long time, hours, before he felt the strength returning to his limbs. His head righted itself first, allowing him to swivel it this way and that on his neck and take in more of the room. Then it was his arms, graduating from twitching his fingers to moving them deliberately, then forming fists, and finally lifting them experimentally into the air.

The last bit was his legs and by this point he was having fun, kicking his feet up and sliding them up to press against his body and then stretching them out again. Then he braced his legs, wrapped a hand around the edge of the table. He sat up.

The table he was laid out on was hard and had several restraints attached to the top and bottom, although they were not being used.

What were they used to restrain? Were they for him? If so, why wasn't he wearing them . . .?

_Is there no one else here? _He eventually wondered. There must have been someone here earlier, otherwise why would he be here? Why would he _be_? How could he find that person? He surely should find them . . .

A voice! He probably had a voice! Should use that.

As soon as he thought that, he worked his tongue. His tongue moved up and down, functioning uselessly for but a moment before he stopped and felt his lips tug into a frown - a pout.

That wasn't right, he realized. You use your tongue to speak, but not in that way. It was strange that, aside from the one he had just experienced, he had no memories. Yet, he knew things. He knew, after a little time, that he was male.

He knew what a voice was, even if he could not ever remember hearing one. He knew what all of his body parts were. However, it seemed the processes that go into the functioning of those features were a little lost on him. Muscle memory in regards to both his body and his brain seemed to be the only thing he could rely on at the moment . . . At least, until he found the person who brought him here.

His eyes slid closed against his will. _To concentrate_, his mind supplied for him. So he concentrated. He concentrated on the darkness of the inside of his eyelids. On the feeling of his chest rising and falling gently, each breath he took in was an unconscious act he didn't understand. He stayed like that for a while longer, feeling his own breathing and staring at the back of his eyelids.

Eventually, the words came to him, although he was nearly nodding off when they did. _Don't think, just do. _Is that what he needed to do? Not think?

Seemed counterproductive to him now, but he supposed most people spoke without consciously thinking on how that process worked, so it was worth a try. Back to his dark eyelids and his chest falling.

Should he think of what he wants to say and then try to say it? No, that was probably too close to thinking for his first attempt. Don't plan, don't think, don't move his tongue around weirdly. Got it. A deeper breath was taking and then, "Hello?" The next sound he made was just a second later in the form of a yelp.

Was that him? Must have been . . . He hadn't been able to grasp, just from that one word alone, what his voice sounded like. He did notice that his voice didn't sound raspy or unused, which vaguely surprised him. He wasn't sure why it should sound weak and unused, but he did. Instead, what little he got about his voice sounded normal.

Sure, the call wasn't as loud as it could've been, but that was really the only weakness his voice possessed and could be attributed to him not focusing on the loudness of his voice as he said it. He should try again.

"H-Hello?" There was a stutter this time . . . that hadn't been there before, but the call was louder, this time. If someone was around, an idea that became more and more doubtful the more time that passed, then maybe they would hear him this time.

Evidently not, as seconds and then minutes passed without even so much as the sound of footsteps. Should he look around? Try to leave and find who brought him here? Should he try to stand? He didn't know what to make of the first idea, though a part of it appealed to him.

The second idea appealed to him the most and brought a strong internal desire to find and seek guidance from this person to the forefront of his mind. To do either of those things, however, he would have to make good on the third idea to reach his mind - and that one scared him. He felt like a child might when confronted with standing up for the first time.

Determination welled up in him, subtle but strong. There was nothing to this, he knew. Standing would be hard to achieve and maintain if he was unwell, but he was not unwell. He'd been conscious for many hours and sitting up for quite some time, as well. Besides, it had been hours since his aches and pains had gone away and they had yet to return.

As strange and out-of-place as he felt, he was quite well and so he knew he could do this if he could just keep from being afraid. Then, he could explore and find that person. He hefted his legs over the side of the table and allowed them to hang there for a moment, the only part of his body that remained relaxed. He then allowed himself to drop the remaining foot to the ground.

His legs were strong and steady from the moment they touched the ground, but he still almost stumbled and fell due to his own reaction to it. It was an odd feeling to him, standing, even though he knew it to be a completely normal and essential part of human behavior. That is, assuming he was human.

That thought froze his foot in the air mid step. Was he human?

He _felt _human, as strange as that was to compare and measure. But then, why had the thought introduced itself? Surely, if he was human, he would not have to question it, right? Though, he was questioning an awful lot of things right now . . .

Was he a vampire?

Again, he had no idea where the thought came from or why he felt the need to ask that question, specifically. His fingers felt something rough and soft.

He jolted and quickly withdrew his hands from his neck while wondering when he put them there. With heavy, stumbling steps, he made his way to the sink stationed on one side of the room. Where he could see a mirror.

He was aware of the fact that his steps were unnecessarily firm, slamming his feet to the ground with each step, but he was more interested in getting to the mirror and seeing what was on his neck. Hands gripping the cool metal of the sink basin, he leaned forward towards his first good look at himself.

The edges of the oval mirror was a bit dirty with some dings and scratches, but a large portion of the middle was perfectly clear, providing him with a great view of what appeared to be him. Giant, clear blue eyes peered back at him, framed by dark eyelashes.

His neck. Tearing his eyes away from the facial features that so enraptured him, they settled on the slender column of pale flesh.

There was a rough clothy material wrapped around it. He stared at it with the same intensity as he had his own face. His hands grazed the cloth again and he was unraveling it before stopping to think about it. As the cloth around his neck began to run out, his fingers developed a nervous tremor that made the process more difficult.

Why was he nervous? He couldn't figure it out, some latent memory that refused to surface, but created an almost instinctual fear of what he was about to see. The cloth hit the ground. He stared at it for a mere moment before bringing his eyes back up to his neck. His heart felt like it stuttered, stopped, and restarted in the time it took to take in the sight that greeted him and process it.

. . .

. . .

His neck was fine.

It was a little shiny, something had been rubbed on it, but no injury or irritation that would require being wrapped up . . .

What had he been afraid of seeing so much that the sight of the healthy flesh absolutely shocked him? It wasn't because of the cloth, there was something else he was forgetting . . .

The sound of a heavy door clunking open dragged a startled cry from him and he turned around, just in time to see a tall, lanky redhead come in, carrying a tray of glass bottles. . . .Which they promptly dropped upon seeing him.

"What are you doing _awake_?" The man cried, his voice surprisingly high.

He recognized this man, he realized. The one from the memory . . . _he'd _brought him here.

* * *

-The Author WIll Now Speak-

**Don't worry, I'm not going to completely skip over how Lavi brought Allen to life. I'll do a throwback in time at the beginning of the next chapter to fill you in on that. I just knew that the flow of the story and character development would be more striking if we were thrown into existence with Allen, having only a little more clue of what was going on. **

**Fun fact, did you know that apparently the Frankenstein movies made up that whole thing about the "monster" being brought to life with lightning, because it was never stated in the original book exactly how Victor Frankenstein created life. Well, for myself, I was thinking less lightning and more chemicals and solutions . . . Meanwhile, give me comments. I love them very much. **


	7. Procedural

The needle punctured the skin of the corpse's wrists as the vampire pushed it clean through the flesh and out the other side, then pulling taut the thread following it. Lavi was very glad at this point that he had gotten sewing needles made specifically for sewing leather. A less expensive and tough needle would have bent long before this point.

Initially when he was making his plans, he had put some serious thought into undoing the rigor mortis that the body parts had gone through before sewing them together. However, when he did more research on that line of thinking, he realized he would have to go through the time and trouble of creating the right solution, then applying it to each of the body part separately and - he decided to explore other options.

Ultimately, he decided that the easiest and most efficient option, the one that made the most overall sense, was to just sew the parts together while they were still stiffened. For a regular human, this route would have been impossible with how tough the skin was.

A human just wouldn't have the physical strength to get through the whole process. Even Lavi, with his special strength, found himself grunting and straining in some areas, barely working the needle through.

Lavi considered himself to be a good, competent minion for his dark demon master, but he would admit to not having been very good at sewing on the onset of this. He had never found himself in the position to sew anything before this and memorizing instructions from a book could only get one so far.

However, he was pleased to notice that he got better as he proceeded through his task and when he finally did the last bit of sewing required of him, attaching the new hands to the body's wrists, he actually considered himself much more proficient at it. He was quite proud of that.

Nonetheless his first several, _several _stitches were truly atrocious and he was glad that none of the stitches should be visible by the end of the procedure. If he did it right. Just because the boy Lavi was making was stitched together, it didn't mean that Yu would be at all pleased if he _looked _stitched together.

And if Yu wasn't pleased, the bottom line was that Lavi wouldn't end up being pleased (or healthy . . .), either. So, after he'd tied off the last stitch and placed his sewing kit to the side, he started work on the lotion that was supposed to "disappear" the stitches and heal the tears in the body.

It was for things like this lotion that he realized how well-suited to each other he and Yu were. Lavi, with his strong need to know everything, and Yu, with his equally strong desire to _have _everything. The result of this was a truly large "medicine cabinet" of ingredients.

He even had some of the pretty rare stuff, so he could make just about anything. The lotion he was making for his creation had some of those rare ingredients, such as powdered unicorn horn and the skin of a boggart.

Since boggarts had the innate ability to shape shift and become invisible, the skin would be the main ingredient that would rid his creation of the stitches and cuts, while the advanced healing ability brought by the unicorn horn will make sure it heals and stays that way.

There was also some goat's milk, which was really better for the skin. After carefully mixing these and the other ingredients together, thereby producing his lotion, he checked that the body had set up long enough while he'd been working.

It had, so he spent an hour carefully applying and massaging into the attached areas and then used the rest on the joints. At this point, his left hand reached over to the side and paged through the other book he'd brought with him.

He was more familiar with necromancy than he was with sewing, but he'd still never reanimated a body with a soul before. He'd made zombies; soulless husks that had a spotty reputation for following the orders of the one that created them.

This was different. This was supposed to be a _person_, who could do more than eat and move. Who could direct themself.

After finding the right page that promised both a reanimated body and a soul recalled from the dead, Lavi got to redrawing the images from the pages of the book to the flesh of his subject. Soon, the skin was littered with darkly inked circles containing different runes and figures.

He never quite understood how these were supposed to work, but he did know what the symbols were supposed to mean. Each ring of symbols called on an ancient god or force (the translations of older, unknown, texts were never quite clear on which it was and the importance of the difference between the two) to return life to the being.

The demon supposed, although it pained him to think it, that he didn't strictly _need_ to know how it worked, in this case. All that truly mattered now was that it did work and that there was no structural flaws in the system. At least, no flaws that Yu would smack him around for.

According to the texts, it would take around eighteen hours for the body and brain to heal enough for them to finally wake up. Only then could Lavi see his creation in their entirety; mind, body, and soul. As eager as Lavi was to see all his work up until this point come to fruition, the wait time gave him plenty of time to rest before checking on his creation. Time to eat, sleep . . . and also . . .

This was the part Lavi had been putting off and truly looking forward to doing the least. Back when he had first taken out those gravediggers for their body, he knew he would need to check the body for any significant supernatural injuries.

The last, the absolute last, thing he needed was for foreign DNA leftover from a creature attack to mess around with the resurrection procedure. Or for his creation to actually change into a supernatural creature on the operating table.

There were few creatures that could turn a human into one of them, instead of just killing them, but it was still a very present risk. Besides, this kid may have been young when he died, but he was far, far from the infant and toddler stages where mortality was higher and expected. Likewise, he was not old enough to commonly die due to work-related hazards.

Not to say that young people just entering the workforce didn't ever do work that was dangerous with a high chance of maiming or death; it was just rare, even among the poorest classes. Few humans wanted to hire young humans for harsh tasks that they had no experience in, just for the new hire to die on them almost immediately.

Realistically speaking, with supernatural creatures of numerous varieties constantly picking off humans, there was not exactly an excess of humans to choose from, should one of their workers die unexpectedly. All this noted, the boy was in the exact wrong age group to normally die of disease or work-related incidents.

However, he was close to the right age to traipse off into the night, full of youthful arrogance, to test his mettle against the monsters that plagued humanity, making the chances of a creature-related death rather high.

Sometimes he hated to be right.

The two cauterized puncture marks on the boy's neck confirmed the worst. Okay, perhaps "the worst" was a bit over dramatic. There were, of course, worse things than finding that the child had been attacked by a vampire. It was still irritating, though and would take a bit of work to make sure the boy didn't turn and ruin everything.

If Yu came in expecting a "partner" that was up to his standards and encountered one of Lavi's own kind- would not be pleased, nope.

The main reason that Lavi had been putting off this particular series of tasks was because of the mouth. Every place chose to handle its problems its own way and there were many ways to handle the problem of someone turning into a creature that preys on humans.

To kill a vampire, you could hack (and with the dullness of the most common weapons, it would be a hacking) off their head, stake them in the heard with a cedar branch, or tie them down in direct sunlight to watch them burn. Yet, they seemed to have caught this boy after he'd died of his attack but before he'd started the change, which opened up another option.

Strictly speaking, all vampires were allergic to garlic.

One of the many strange situations Lavi had found himself in was running through a field of garlic crop, where he ended up tripping and falling onto some of the produce. Just the skin of his hands making physical contact with the harmless looking stuff was enough to make Lavi feel like his _blood was itching_ a few seconds later.

The humans had proven, through their ingenuity as well as trial and error, that stuffing garlic into the mouth of a recently deceased suspected of being infected by a vampire's bite would stop them from turning, but only so long as they hadn't already started turning and the garlic remained in their mouth.

Should the garlic be removed, the change would eventually start again. This prompted the humans to bury their dead after placing the garlic, so that the body would remain undisturbed.

Slipping on a thickly padded glove and working the jaw open to remove the cloves of garlic, Lavi felt his lips twitch into a wry grin as he thought that if someone had done that for himself after he'd been bitten, he probably wouldn't be around to be doing this today.

Lavi wrinkled his nose at the smell of the garlic after he'd managed to get it out. He headed over to the side to toss the offensive article into the trash before stepping back before the body.

Since the mouth had successfully been garlicked before the bite infection spread, Lavi could skillfully remove the - for lack of a better term, venom - if he acted quickly. This was because the infection was still localized around the bite and had not been allowed to travel throughout the body, where assassination would then be the only option available to stop the change.

This removal wasn't an act most thought possible and it would only work for a short time longer since Lavi had removed the garlic stopping it in its tracks. Lavi pulled the syringe he needed out of the sanitizer jar it had been sitting in. With practiced ease, he flicked the needle around and punctured one of the holes in the neck.

First blood and then a black, tar-like liquid poured into the syringe. Since Lavi needed to get it all out, he kept loading the syringe until only blood started coming out again. His long fingers twirled the needle around and depressed the plunger, squirting the mixture of blood and vampire venom into a nearby metal bowl.

He quickly sanitized the needle and then inserted it into the second puncture mark, repeating the same process. Then, to make sure the marks both healed quickly and didn't get infected later on, he covered the neck in a special healing salve. It was ridiculously quick-acting, but did leave the skin oily for a time. He then wrapped the skin in gauze and leaned back with a sigh.

Okay, he was exhausted. And . . . yep, all of his work seemed to be done. There was no way his creation would even wake up until more than half a day had passed, so . . . looked like it was time for a nap. A long one and then a snack.

Lavi groaned appreciatively as he stretched his arms over his head, feeling his muscles pull deliciously and hearing his back crack. Lavi was going to enjoy doing nothing but sleeping the day away, he'd definitely earned it.

And although he didn't see it - it truly was only for a split second - his creation's eyelids twitched. Like the boy was having a dream.


	8. It's You

"It's you. You brought me here." He said quietly.

The redhead stood there for a moment, gaping and seemingly not taking in his words. He shifted, starting to feel uncomfortable, as he watched the other man. "You're up." The redheaded man said, jolting out of his shock. Bright green eyes still blinking in confusion, the man started towards him.

Something in him wanted to stiffen, to stumble back from the strange person approaching him . . . but something even deeper inside him found the man mysteriously familiar and knew the man wouldn't hurt him. Why he knew that, however, was . . .

"Who are you?" He found himself breathing out. He really wasn't sure what to make of the situation or the man, but if he recalled his dream well enough, his name should be-

"Right! Where are my manners? I go by the name Lavi, I'm a vampire. You must be very confused. My master, a demon by the name of Yu Kanda, requested your presence here. Don't worry, I'll explain everything you need to know, but I need to check you over first, so if you wouldn't mind getting back on the table . . ."

"Why? Why do I need to get back on the table? What's going to happen?" He couldn't help but feel a little afraid.

"Nothing, really." Lavi hastened to assure. "I just need to check you over to make sure you are at least moderately unharmed. You are not supposed to be up yet, after all, and that might be concerning."

Feeling the strangeness that could only be called "reassured trepidation", he proceeded back to the table he'd only just left and climbed back on with a bit of Lavi's help.

Laying down, he watched as Lavi first checked his neck, the long fingers grazing inquisitively over the skin of his neck. "I see you've taken off the wrap." The redhead commented idly.

"Was I not supposed to do that?" He asked, worriedly.

"No, it's fine. The bite seems to have healed, anyway."

"The bite?" He echoed. He wondered if that was what he'd been unconsciously looking for a while ago. Is that what he had been expecting to see?

"Yes." Lavi winced in response. "I'm not sure how much you remember, if you remember anything, but I . . . found your body and brought you back from the dead. I don't know anything about you besides what your body told me. Your past and exactly how you came to die, I don't know, but I know that you died in the aftermath of a vampire attack."

"A . . . vampire . . . attack?" He asked, knowing that he would rather grab onto that concept than the idea that he had been _dead. _

Lavi nodded, still watching him carefully to make sure he was alright. "There was a familiar pair of bite marks on your neck and whoever prepared you for burial had put precautions in place to keep you from reanimating later."

"I . . . see . . ." He mumbled, trying to understand all that was being told to him.

The best way to go along was to move forward, he supposed. "Do I . . . have a name, then?" He asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer a little.

The green eyes popped open wide. "Oh, yeah! That! I don't know what yours was." He raised his hands in surrender when he saw the younger boy's shoulders fall in disappointment. "Hey, it's alright. So you don't have a name right now, you can come up with one. Or I can come up with one for you. You got any ideas?"

Allen looked at him before he closed his silver eyes and thought. An idea appeared from the mist of his memories, unbidden, but unwilling to be ignored. "Allen . . ." His - - no, Allen's - - lips formed the name and something previously missing clicked inside him. Something slid home.

"Allen. I want my name to be Allen." He said, stronger.

"Oh, alright then. Allen. Any reason why?" Lavi asked. He sounded both interested and distracted as he finished his inspection of Allen's body.

"It just . . . feels right." He - - Allen - - replied, feeling like that wasn't quite enough to describe it.

"Right. Well, it seems like you're in order. Healing nicely. What do you say we move somewhere a little more comfortable to talk?" Lavi asked.

"Okay. Um . . . where?" Allen asked, not moving to leave the table, yet. Lavi looked up at him with bright eyes and a smile.

"How do you feel about the library?"

"So I don't suppose you've ever been in a library before, huh?" The redhead asked, reclining back into the plush chair.

"I don't really know. Most things feel unfamiliar, right now." Allen said, carefully sitting down in his own identical seat, next to Lavi.

"Of course. Right. It's just, the impression I got from your body was that you were a hardworking class and those types often know _how _to read, but they don't frequently get the opportunity to do so."

Lavi waved his hand at the room in a wide gesture. "Libraries like these, with more than just one or two shelves and a handful of books, are relatively rare. They only belong to people who have the money to pay for them, like Yu."

"Yu?" Allen inquired, peering at Lavi in curiosity.

"Yes, my master, Yu Kanda. I believe I mentioned him before? Anyway, you're here for him." Here, Lavi seemed hesitant. "You're here, you were created, to be his . . . lover, I suppose."

Anticipating a reaction of a type Allen didn't know, Lavi hastily continued. "You won't have to meet him now, of course. I wasn't expecting you so soon and seeing you, I think you'd do well having a night to yourself. To just . . . wrap your mind around . . . your existence." Lavi gave a light laugh that didn't match his uncomfortable expression.

"You can meet Yu tomorrow." The redhead said thoughtfully, after a moment. "Probably not for long. Yu doesn't like to spend much time with anyone. Right now, let's focus on you. Yu gave me leeway to choose a room for you and so I did. Let's go see it?"

Lavi posed the last statement as a question with a hopeful expression and his right hand extended out for the newly named Allen to take it. He did.

Allen found himself thoroughly surprised by the sheer number of flights of stairs they were forced to ascend from where the library was as they flitted through the mansion. The entire mansion and all of the floors that made it up were dark and shadowy. Maybe that was because of what the inhabitants were: Lavi being a vampire and this Yu Kanda being . . . did demons have a weakness to light?

Allen realized he didn't know and as he opened his mouth to ask, but Lavi unknowingly cut him off. "Here we are." The redhead announced with a small wave of his hand as they came to a door in the exact middle of their current hallway. Lavi gracefully stepped up to the door, opened it, and beckoned Allen to follow him in.

After following the older man inside, Allen found himself staring in awe at his room. It wasn't as big as the library, but the library had been absolutely _huge, _so that wouldn't have been a realistic expectation, anyway. What the room did have that the library immediately didn't was a large bed with cream colored sheets and marching embroidered pillows.

It looked funny to him, the material, and he distantly heard himself asking about it and being replied to that the material was "silk". He didn't know what that was. The bed had dark red curtains hanging from the top of it and it looked to Allen like the curtains could be closed around the bed.

The rest of the room was large and although sparsely furnished, the room had everything it needed. The remaining furniture consisted of a bedside table (mahogany, Lavi readily interjected with the information), a small two-person couch near the center of the room; although it was a few feet off center, a medium-sized mahogany (?) trunk at the foot of the bed, and a standing wardrobe.

The wardrobe appeared to be the second most eye-catching thing in the room, after the bed. It was pitch black on nearly the whole thing with some matching cream highlights on the accents on its doors.

"I suppose I'll leave you to it, then, if you have no other questions?" He seemed to wait for Allen to nod and after an awkward handful of seconds, Allen did so. "Alright, then. Get some sleep and please wait here for me to come get you later. After I wake up, I'll come get you to have breakfast and hopefully meet you." Lavi smiled winningly and although Allen tried to mirror it, he wasn't sure he succeeded.

Allen laid back on his bed once Lavi was gone. It was soft but stiff in a way that was hard to describe. He supposed, in a way, that it reminded him of the mansion as a whole and of Lavi. Soft but, in a weird way, stiff. Ingratiating, but underlyingly dangerous. Charismatic. But cold.

His blue eyes stared up at the ceiling, wondering what to think. His experiences since waking up had been so strange, completely unknown territory. Moreover, he suspected that he was not reacting to everything as he should be.

Allen thought, first and foremost, that he could be in shock. With everything that's been told to him in the only a handful of hours since he'd woken up, it was very likely. Maybe the feelings that weren't confusion or uncertainty would hit him when he woke, then.

Still, as Allen stayed staring up at the ceiling above him, not feeling the slightest trace of sleepiness tug at him, he couldn't help but think of something else. Another possibility.

Perhaps . . . perhaps the restrained emotions were just how he was now.

Maybe that's what happens when you bring someone back from the dead.


	9. New Home

The sound of a crow cawing right outside his window jolted Allen up and off his bed. He hadn't fallen asleep, but he had still been surprised by the sound. A chill made its way through Allen's hands from where they were pressed against the floorboards.

The new person, as Allen had started to consider himself, had been lying on the bed for no more than a few hours, so he still wasn't tired as he pushed himself up off the floor and turned towards the window.

The crow made another loud, birdish sound and then with a loud flapping of its wings, took off. Allen watched it go, his eyes wide. A few seconds of almost painful silence. The window was covered on either side by curtains with a sizable part in the middle that he could see the outside through.

With his hand moving like the air around it had thickened, Allen moved a curtain on one side out of the way with the back of his hand. He, strangely, found the outside view surprising but also not. He hadn't really thought about what he was expecting to be outside, but this was kind of it.

One could say that the forest outside looked like the remnants of one that was burned down _years _ago. The trees were emaciated sculptures of cracked and burned wood. Few of the trees were growing leaves and the leaves that did appear were darkly colored and dry looking.

Allen supposed that the forest didn't have to have been on fire to gain this look. While the sun did shine down on the area his new home occupied, it did not do so unobstructed. Dense cloud cover and the foggy, thick air of the area made the sunlight that reached Allen's window sill a mockery of what it could have been.

Allen felt he probably didn't know a lot of things about himself or about the world and how it worked. He certainly didn't know about plants and sunlight besides the most basic, obvious parts. Still, Allen was sure that if this part of the world was normally so cool and dry and dark, then that in and of itself would be an explanation for why the plant life was as it was.

Allen jolted as a thought occurred to him. Perhaps that was a place to start!

He didn't like the feeling of knowing so little, especially about his new home. He likely couldn't learn more about many things until Lavi came or this Yu Kanda came for him, but there _was_ something he could learn about in the meantime.

Thankfully, Allen knew how to get to that massive library from his room. Lavi had learned to create Allen, at least in part, from that library! Surely, there was something or other in that library on plants to fill the void in his knowledge about it.

Slipping away from the window and out of the room and he proceeded to make his way carefully down the hallway.

The redheaded vampire crawled along the ceiling, making his way down the hallway to Allen's new room.

Lavi couldn't help but be proud of his creation, feeling awed by him. He hadn't really known what to expect of the person he was creating before he'd woken. He had known, of course, that they wouldn't be anything like a zombie.

This kind of thing had happened before, but even with the written accounts of such experiments that he had read in the library, the things he didn't know about it somewhat outweighed the things he did.

The results of the experiment, if not the process, was shrouded in much more mystery. Factually speaking, there was more raw information available on what the resulting creation _wouldn't _be than what it _would _be.

He knew it wouldn't be mindless or half-dead like a zombie, it wouldn't hunger for dead flesh like a nidhogg, and if Lavi dealt with the bite on the neck as he had, then it wouldn't come to life only to transform into a vampire or other supernatural creature. That was more or less it.

From that, Lavi could extrapolate that it would have free thought, even a personality. It would be fully alive, possibly fully human. It shouldn't fall apart or have issues like that.

But what would he eat?

Would he sleep? Would his lungs work? Would his blood flow or would it sit still in his veins like Lavi's did? The questions and therefore the apprehension, piled up and finally, as the project wrapped up, he would have his answer.

A pulse. His creation had a pulse, he'd felt it as soon as they'd sat down in the library together that morning.

The heart beat, the blood flowed, and it was amazing. He had kept in mind, of course, that the outcome of his experiment would probably be very close to human, but he hadn't really _expected _it. Even if he had? Seeing it was a totally different experience.

As well, from the small amount of time he'd spent with his creation, Lavi could tell he was smart. Or he would be, once he got some knowledge in him. He clearly had thoughts and feelings, too, just like Lavi had barely dared to hope.

Not that he was too expectant that Yu would be pleased with his new partner. He _was _difficult to please, after all. Allen might be an amazing creation and look flawless on the outside, but he was still new on the inside.

Lavi just hoped he had enough time to help Allen learn and grow before Yu started expecting _too much _out of him. _Wishful thinking, _Lavi mentally scoffed as he crawled down from the ceiling to stand on the floor before Allen's door. He knocked firmly and waited patiently for his young charge to open the door. He didn't.

Maybe sleeping . . . he's had a heavy morning, Lavi supposed. He knocked again, this time louder and longer. Still nothing. And it was at this point that Lavi decided the direct way was the only way forward. He turned the door handle and slid into the room, keeping the door half-closed behind him.

He'd expected to see his Allen laying in the bed, dead asleep, or maybe sitting in one of the chairs, doing nothing in particular. He wasn't there.

Lavi went to check under the bed, just to be sure, and then he stood by the window. Looking out at the dark night beyond the glass, it was much later now. After he had woken up at his usual time in the late evening, he did need to do some of his nightly chores before going to get Allen, as promised.

Did Allen leave sometime during that metaphorical window of time? Lavi's vampiric eyes scanned the wide swathe of land outside the window, but his night vision didn't pick up a bit of movement from outside, much less his little charge making an escape.

If he went outside, he had to have left earlier than Lavi had woken up. And if Allen had gone somewhere else in the mansion . . . he still would have had to get up and go there before Lavi had woken up. The vampire found it quite hard to believe that the boy would have made it to wherever he was going while neither running into him nor leaving his scent rubbed all over placed Lavi would pass through later.

For the sake of his head remaining attached to his body, Lavi was going to assume Allen had only taken a little jaunt around his new home. The vampire would deal with the alternative _if _it happened. He just _really hoped it didn't happen!_

And so proceeded the redheaded vampire named Lavi, sniffing around various corners of the mansion for places Allen would have gone, like the kitchen or the lab. He had to be somewhere.

_Well, this is informative. _Allen thought in a nonplussed manner, staring at the page of the book he was currently on. He'd spent countless hours at this point looking through various books on various types of plants.

Naturally, he'd started his reading quest by first getting a book on gardening. That turned out well and when he'd finished the 300 page book in a half hour, it became apparent to him that he read quite quickly, despite never having done it before and not understanding all words used in the book.

He moved on.

Steadily, he made his way through that section of the library, ultimately picking out stranger and stranger books. Now, regrettably, he was on a book of deadly plants, which was proportionally large to its subject matter. Specifically, he was on something known colloquially as the _suicide plant. _

Apparently, it was a kind of pretty plant absolutely covered in deceptively small, translucent hairs. These hairs make the plant's name a reality. If one of these plants is cut and you inhale any of these hairs, if you even so much as touch the plant _lightly _and the little hairs inevitably break off into your skin, you will experience indescribable pain.

The pain is supposed to be so intense as to be intolerable. Some who'd been unlucky enough to get to know that plant intimately had decided to end it all just to end the pain. Worse still, if you don't get out every single one of the hairs that got stuck in you, the _tiny translucent _ones, the pain will be recurring. The pain could last for days, months, or years.

So, even though that's not its scientific name, it's called the Suicide Plant. And Allen now knew that. All of that. Why he had to know that, he couldn't say, but he knew that now. Allen hesitantly turned to the next page and just barely caught sight of a drawing of a man with blistering skin tied to a tree and screaming, before he slammed the book shut and quickly placed it off to the side.

_I think I;ll stick with petunias, _Allen thought to himself as he cautiously picked the dreaded book back up and began carrying it back to the shelf he got it from. _Did Lavi stock this library? I wonder if he's ever had to use this information . . ._

It was as Allen was passing by a random shelf on his way back to the plant section when he caught a word on one of the spines out of the corner of his eye. _Wait, was that . . ? _Allen stopped and turned towards it.

Yes. The spine of the book only had one, very large, word on it. The word was: _Demons_.

Lavi . . . Lavi did say the person he was made for, Yu, was a demon, didn't he? Allen found himself drawn curiously towards the book, reaching out one of his pale hands towards it, the white flesh glowing compared to the dark leather of the book he reached for.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, another pale hand, this one quite bony, lashed out from somewhere behind him and latched onto his wrist. Head snapping around to view his attacker, his pale blue eyes clashed with a pair of older cerulean ones.

"So you're him, are you?" The harsh voice coming from the man looming over him stated. It didn't really sound like a question and it seemed to Allen like the man was passing judgement.

"I could say the same about you," Allen responded before he could think about it. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the opposing pair. "Yu Kanda."


	10. Incompatible

**Welp, this has been a while coming. Blame finals and Christmas, I sure am! Anyways, enjoy! You guys! I think I succeeded in making this one of my longer chaps, too! A boooonnnnuuuuusssss...**

* * *

One of the demon's dark eyebrows rose in condescending surprise. "You've heard of me already then, have you?" The demon inquired.

The blue eyed boy felt a fissure of anger shoot through him, surprising him enough to drop his gardening book. He didn't know why he was angry - well, he knew well enough.

He was being talked down to.

What surprised him was his reaction to it. He'd had emotions, he'd had worries, since he'd woken up, but he'd felt nothing like this. In the back of his mind, he may have been aware that it was a _bit _of an overreaction.

In the moment, however, that didn't seem to matter. What seemed to matter more was those brows raised in assured condescension, those darkly judgmental blue eyes, the closed-off body language. It was all that seemed to matter.

"Says the one who brought me here in the first place. Seems you've been looking for me." Allen tried to match the other man's unpleasant facial expression and while he was sure that he failed in it, he thought he still managed to rile the guy up.

Indeed, there was a slight angered shifting in the man's expression and the appearance of him grinding his teeth, momentarily. "Presumptuous." Was all the taller man said, maybe not knowing what else to say. Probably just trying to hold onto his temper.

Not that it stopped Allen. "Not much to presume," Allen pressed. "Lavi told me I was brought here for you. To be your "lover". I didn't come here looking for you and I wasn't the one that started this conversation, that was _you_." Allen shot at him.

Yu Kanda actually _snarled _at him and Allen had to consciously try not to shrink back instinctively. "So he's been talking, huh?"

There were two parts of that response that ticked Allen off all the more. The first part was that the demon seemed to completely ignore the entire last half of what Allen had said, like he hadn't even heard him or thought the point so silly as to not even deign to reply. Allen found that either conclusion angered him an equal amount.

The second thing that made Allen want to grind his own teeth and which immediately took precedence in Allen's own mind, was that the demon seemed to be angry at Lavi now. For simply telling Allen about why he had been brought there!

There was an underlying feeling behind Allen's sentence, too. A threat. Of a future punishment, perhaps. Allen didn't like this man, he really didn't. He lashed out.

"Of course he's been talking! He _made_ me! He personally invited me back into the world! He was the only person I could talk to, so of course he talked to me! Where were _you?_" The boy barked out, his tone as accusing as he could possibly get it.

Another snarl from the taller man. "I had better things to do than wait on you to wake and hold your hand once you did! Why shouldn't I have my servant do all unnecessary work for me? His time is much better spent doing all of the unimportant tasks that don't warrant my attention."

The demon loomed over Allen threateningly, their faces now only six inches apart. His eyes and body language absolutely dared Allen to push the issue further and if he were anyone else, the boy might not have taken him up on that dare. As he was, however . . .

"How _dare_ you! You wanted me here! Lavi and I went through all of this because you _demanded_ it! Beneath your notice! Unimportant? Menial? Who the hell do you think you are to-" Allen's hysterical rant was cut off by the demon's own half-mad rambling.

"I am your master! You are a pathetic creature that is lucky that I appeared as soon as I did!"

"You are not my master! Allen shot back furiously, his eyes alight. "I am no one's slave and if I was I would be Lavi's, not yours! You wanted me here, so if there's anyone who should be serving anyone else, it's _you_ that should be serving _me_."

"_You_ _insignificant little corpse!_" Kanda howled out, the words more than the tone acting like blades sinking into Allen's reconstructed heart.

Kanda took this moment of inaction on Allen's part, his stunned little silence, to lean even closer until their noses were nearly touching. "Your body and brain would be eaten through by maggots by now if it wasn't for me! I invite you to remember that." The demon added.

The boy's wide blue eyes stared into the cold and blue eyes stared into the cold and barren blue of the other. The eyes staring down his own seemed not to notice the very dominant shock and hurt swirling in the younger man's eyes. More likely, he didn't care.

It was probably the intended effect of his words and so the demon had gotten what he'd wanted. He'd shown Allen his place.

Allen didn't move from his position staring desperately into the terribly cold eyes inches in front of him He felt something desolate rise up in him.

"Yu . . ." An achingly familiar voice came from the entrance of the library, sounding both shocked and surprised. Allen and Kanda both turned toward the door in the next second, finding the infamous Lavi standing in the doorway.

The look on the vampire's face was one Allen hadn't yet seen on him, horrified shock and disappointment. The look said it all, really. He had heard everything or at least he had heard enough.

This was what jolted Allen out of his fixed stupor. Something itchy feeling welled up in his eyes and something wet slid down his cheeks. A part of Allen wanted to touch at whatever was on his face, but he couldn't be distracted from the situation.

Allen found his face crumble just a second before he broke into a run and tore out of the room, leaving the vampire and demon behind. As if his body were moving on its own, Allen's legs carried his up through the gothic building, level after level, until he got to his room. "His" room.

The strange thing was, Allen remotely thought as he yanked the door open and closed behind him, it did feel like his. Despite the fact that he had yet to successfully sleep in the room at all, it felt like a safe place; the only safe place. It was his own.

Allen found himself regretting what he had thought earlier that morning; he didn't think he wanted to feel things anymore. If feeling things made him feel like this, then it might just be best to be numb and uncaring.

. . . Was he really a corpse? He knew he had been killed by a vampire attack, Lavi had told him that. He knew he'd been dead, but he was back. He was _back_.

He wasn't still a corpse, was he? Just a corpse...?

The vampire could not help but stare at his master in horror. He'd seen the way the demon had tore into his new lover, saying whatever he could think of to truly hurt the boy. He seemed to have succeeded.

Lavi was by no means an empathetic individual, except with regarding people close to him, like family. Which he had no more of.

Lavi had been raised with things that didn't concern him. Things that didn't affect him were none of his business.

He didn't get involved with drunken brawls, he never got involved in monster hunting in the towns that he had lived and even as a vampire, he didn't attack without a reason for doing so. He _did_ need a reason, but when he had one, he reacted quickly and with extreme violence. So no, he wasn't known for being particularly empathetic.

Before now, there had only been two people he really loved and considered true family. _She _was one of them. Sometimes Lavi thought he was born a sociopath, but then moments happened when he realized his heart wasn't as unused as his death would suggest. His unwarranted concern for the newly-named Allen was one of those.

He wondered what it was that allowed it to happen. Was it how close Allen was in age to being a child. Some of the only beings that he had true issues hurting were children. Or maybe it was how polite the boy seemed to be; so confused. In reality, it was likely that Allen had already been classified in his mind, more or less, as his responsibility; his charge.

He wasn't a potential victim to Lavi's mind. Although that apparently didn't hold true for Yu.

Lavi brought his gaze away from the doorway that Allen had disappeared through and towards his demon master. The demon had been staring at him levelly ever since Allen had run off, not bothering enough to actually watch the boy leave.

"What was that, Yu?" Lavi asked his master, even further surprised to hear the shock in his voice. It was very audible.

"What was what, _Rabbit?_" Yu returned, his dark gaze unwavering and guiltless.

"_That_." Lavi pressed, upset by what he'd just witnessed. "Why did you go at him like that? What were you trying to prove? What did getting angry at him solve?"

"I was showing him his place." Yu Kanda replied, sounding as though he legitimately thought it as simple as that. He probably did.

"And you did that by what? Calling him a _living corpse? _That solved your problem, did it?"

"Are you insinuating it's my fault that he couldn't handle the truth? It's not my fault if he's weak." Dark eyes narrowed at the va,pire. "It's yours." Lavi had to stop himself from stiffening at the blame now shot at him. Allen was what was important at the moment. Speaking of which . . .

"I don't think it was weakness that made him leave. Lavi said softly and, although he was now sure he would be made to regret it later, followed Allen's path out of the room before Yu had a chance to reply.

Lavi hadn't stepped out of the doorway before he caught Allen's distinct scent heading in a distinct direction and he followed it methodically.

This place may have been Yu's "castle", but Lavi had lived here for almost as long as he had and _he _was the one who cleaned around here. So he could probably do perfectly choreographed circuits through the building with a thick blindfold on and cloves of garlic stuck up his nose.

Point being, he barely made it to the second floor before he realized where the scent of his creation was leading him and, of course, it was to his creation's room. Of course. Just before Lavi managed to barge into his creation's new room without thinking, the vampire stopped himself and remembered to knock.

"Allen. Allen, I'm coming in, alright?" Please don't take my head off." Lavi half-heartedly joked before easing the door open and closed it behind him, thus entering the dark room. Why was the room so-Lavi smacked his hand into his face. For a genius, he could really be an idiot.

When preparing this room, he forgot to leave some candles so that Allen could light up the room if he so chose. Lavi didn't know much about it yet, that would come later, but he was working on the assumption that Allen had human-level eyesight.

That would mean that the room would get so dark late in the night and early in the morning that Allen wouldn't be able to see his own hand even just a few inches away from his face. He would have to go and get those as soon as he was done helping Allen.

"Allen?" Lavi asked softly, worriedly, as he made his way over to the large bed with a small lump under the covers. Judging by the size and shape of the lump, it looked like Allen was curled up in a ball under there. That . . . didn't bode well for the little talk Lavi wanted.

"Allen?" Lavi tried again, sitting down on the bed sheets right next to the lump. No response. Not even a shifting. "Al?" Lavi tried, the strange nickname right off his tongue. A twitch. _Strange_ _**that**_ _got a reaction, _Lavi thought, but mentally shrugged his shoulders.

Hey, Al. You need to come out now, okay?" Lavi asked, lightly placing his hand on what he had thought might be Allen's back, but actually felt like his shoulder.

There was a lengthy pause and then Allen's Allen's muffled voice replied, "But I haven't been here very long, at all."

Lavi scoffed underneath his breath. Kid was funny and maybe a little cute, too. "Hate to have to tell ya', little buddy, but you can't wallow; it's not good for you. 'Get back up on the horse' and all that."

The covered body rolled over and blue-gray eyes peeked out from under the covers, looking at Lavi with just a little bit of annoyance. "I don't know what that means." He murmured.

_Just as I thought, then. He must have originally come from out in the boonies. Born of a much lower class, obviously. _"It means that when you fail or when something goes wrong, you need to pick yourself up and try again. Preferably soon afterwards."

"Doesn't sound like fun." Allen muttered, though understanding lit up in his eyes at Lavi's explanation.

"Kid, I love ya', but you're not making this easy on me." Lavi said flippantly, raising his hand to the young man's now available head and tousling his hair.

The boy really was too cute. Why Yu was such a hard ass that he didn't immediately grab onto his new romantic interest with both hands was really anybody's guess. "Sorry." The boy muttered back.

"Look, Al . . . I don't know what to say about Yu. He's my master and I do what he tells me. It doesn't mean that I agree with everything he says and does." Lavi gently pulled down the edge of the blanket, revealing more of Allen's face. "I certainly don't agree with what he said before. About you."

"So you don't think I'm a corpse?" Allen asked, peering up at the vampire. His gray eyes searched Lavi's green for the truth.

Lavi gave a small sigh but then his mouth stretched into a wide, genuine grin. "You _were _a corpse, there's no avoiding that. You were dead and now you're alive, so that makes you a corpse _once_. What you are now, that's up to you, but you're not a corpse.

Corpses don't _think_, they don't _feel_. If nothing else was accomplished by your fight with Yu, then it was proven that you _do _feel. You _feel, _Allen, and I think once you get some learning into you, you'll be pretty smart, too. So wait for that, okay? You're not a walking corpse, Al. I've seen those and you are not it. Yu knows that, too. He just has anger issues."

"What do you mean you've seen-" Allen started, but Lavi waved him off.

"Not important right now, you'll learn about that later. For now, if you're feeling better, how about you take a walk with me to my chambers so we can get you a candle or two?"

Lavi extended a hand and waited for Allen to take it. When the boy hesitated, Lavi added in a sing-song voice, "And I can tell you more about how you came to be here on the way!" A smaller hand was placed hesitantly in his own and Lavi pulled the small form out of the bed and out of the room.

The sound of two excited voices chattering away echoed out into the cold, empty mansion.

A demon heading to his own quarters listened to it, unwillingly. Contemplatively.


	11. It Festers

Allen awoke from his sleep so instantaneously that it seemed to him as if he hadn't been asleep at all. However, the energy he'd gotten from his rest quickly dissuaded him of that thought. The room was dimly lit from the light filtering brightly into the otherwise pitch room.

It was only that little light that allowed him to see the two candles sitting on the trunk at the base of his bed. They'd been lit by him and Lavi the previous night, but he'd snuffed them out before going to sleep. He wouldn't have thought of it, he was not particularly familiar with using candles, but Lavi had taken several minutes to impress upon him the importance of remembering to put out the candle when he felt himself getting tired.

After a little bit of that, Allen had insisted that he wouldn't forget and his redheaded creator excused himself to take care of a number of chores, after apologizing for not being able to introduce Allen to more things about life that night, like they'd planned. Allen sent him off with his own apologies. After all, it was his fight with Kanda that had rushed the night, after all.

Despite his assurances, Allen didn't think he would get to sleep at all, just like the previous night. He hadn't been able to sleep before when he was supposed to, so what hope did he have for doing so when he was supposed to be up and about? Apparently a good deal, as Allen felt himself near immediately pulled into sleep the second his head hit the pillow.

Allen was forced to leap back up from the bed to snuff out the two candles or be forced to set ablaze his promise . . . and also possibly his room along with it. That _was_ rather important. Allen was still surprised he'd still fallen asleep at all and, nevermind for all long as he'd had.

The light coming in from the window, even though most of it was lost to the room, was more than enough to show early-to-mid morning. Considering it hadn't even been late yet in the night when he'd gone to sleep, Allen had been asleep for quite a while by that time.

Allen glanced around the room and at the door leading out, finding himself wondering if Lavi was sleeping now and hoping that Kanda was. They'd talked quite a bit with each other the previous night while on their trip around the sizable mansion and Lavi had mentioned that he often slept from dawn until dusk, mostly due to his extreme vampiric skin sensitivity to light.

Even a small amount, just some soft light, was damaging and should be avoided by any vampire that wasn't an idiot, according to him. Lavi freely called himself reckless, but not that reckless. Well, Allen himself wasn't going to go to sleep again so he might as well take another walk.

While he could guess that Lavi was asleep now, the boy really hoped that Yu Kanda was asleep, too. Even if it was a foolish thought, he rather hoped he'd never see the demon again. Allen shuffled out of the bed and quietly headed to the door, absurdly worried that he would wake someone up.

On second thought after opening the door into the hallway and seeing nothing but complete darkness, Allen turned around and grabbed one of the candles, lighting it before proceeding onwards.

It was hard to make his way around the hall now, more than when he'd explored it the three times previous. During those times, someone had lit multiple candles attached to the walls all along the entire length.

In the hall at that moment, there was nothing. No candles were lit, no windows were built in at all, no undead guide, nothing. His footsteps echoed slightly along the expanse of hallway and he could only be grateful he wasn't wearing shoes or he would surely have awakened some of his . . . new family, with them being sensitive to sound and such.

Allen didn't really know where he was going, but he felt the need, the strong desire, to go somewhere. He disappeared further and further down into the mansion's depths, but stopped himself when the mansion's flooring turned from dark wood to gray _rock_. Allen knew, could remember, what was beyond this point.

Yes, he knew that though it would be a few more minutes walking from that spot to get there, but the laboratory basically started where the stone flooring appeared. Allen could see, now that he didn't have anything better to do than look, that the parts of the building and flooring where the stone started really looked different from the rest of the house.

Much like it had been added in later, the rest of the home separated from the lab area by more than a door and some stone. Allen would bet his newly returned life, looking at it now, that the stone walls and floor were the exact marker of where the old building ended and the new construction began.

One of the most important things that was different was the feeling he was getting about the area now, as he stood at what was effectively the threshold of the lab where he was created, hesitating to go down there.

The rest of the mansion (and exactly one of its occupants) were as far from welcoming and comforting as a home could get. It was dark and foreboding and cold, not to mention very hard to make your way around when you're new. As he was. That couldn't be helped.

However, the feeling the lab space gave him now as Allen stood there, redefined the word "uncomfortable" for him. The cold wafted up from the stairs that sloped sharply down into darkness like it was alive. Like smoke rising from the source of a fire, but invisible.

The cold wafting up felt like it was coming for him, wanting him. Allen didn't know why, in his imagination, the cold was a sentient thing that reached out to grab him. What would it want from him, of all people?

Well, in his mind's eye, that question was answered by the image of ghostly white hands like wisps and cold as ice grabbing his arms and legs and dragging him kicking and screaming down into the place of his conception.

To take back what had been given so freely earlier. To retrieve the gift of life that had been wasted on him.

Had it really been free, though? Truly? Perhaps it was just a loan, the life he'd been given, and that's why he was suddenly so afraid of the place that gave him life and why the cold felt so viciously accusing.

It was for this moment that Allen became aware of a sharp difference between him and the person he was closest to at this point, Lavi.

Lavi, from what little he's been able to observe and ask of the man in regards to his scientific projects, seemed to take it as his right to do whatever he wanted with science and with necromancy. It was hard for Allen to really articulate what he felt was the truth about the redhead into tangible words in his head, but they were beginning to form, nonetheless.

To Lavi, it seemed, all that limited him was what he could realistically accomplish and, in his own words, he could accomplish a great many unbelievable things once he put his mind to it. It could be that anything he could do was in his right to perform. There was no sense in holding himself back if he wanted something, concerning himself with ideas like not having a right to do anything.

Allen, on the other hand, could never quite stop thinking about what he had a right to do. Did he have a right to even _live? _This concern, more than any other, tended to swirl in and out of his thoughts, plaguing him, in a way. He wondered now if he had felt that way about his place in the world when he had been alive?

He couldn't remember, but if he did or not, he certainly worried about it now and how could he not? He had no memories of being naturally born or growing up with a family and instead was only briefly familiar with this artificial life. That was what it was, even if Lavi did outright say it or perhaps even think it to himself.

Lavi created life, but he is only a man. An undead man, clearly old and with deep wells of knowledge on subjects that Allen couldn't even guess at, but he was still just a man. How could he possibly create a true life, a true _person? _

How could a vampire playing with and manipulating forces that had existed for eons longer than him possibly manage to stack up against the truly unknowable force that created life and human souls? How could _Allen _stack up against that?

Did he even have a soul? How would one even create a soul? Lavi couldn't seem to answer that. So, did that mean that he hadn't created one?

It seemed strange for the thoughtful person that Allen had come to know in the last two days for him not to have thought about that. Perhaps he'd thought about it and just hadn't cared? _Sometimes problems just take care of themselves. _

Envy curled in Allen's gut, even as the thought of no one caring if he had a soul or not caused his heart to sink a little in his chest. He envied it, he realized; Lavi's ability to feel like he belonged anywhere, that he had a right to everything he wanted to do.

It made him indescribably sad and yet gave him hope for the future. That maybe one day, when he was older, he could feel like he belonged - _anywhere, really _\- as well as Lavi did. Lavi, who researched and manipulated the very forces of life and death like they were his right to play with.

Not like Allen. A small, lone man in a big world. He turned around swiftly and headed down another hallway he hadn't gone down before. He wouldn't go down to that dark place, not ever.

He didn't know that hallway would take him to a door that lead to outside the stately home. He didn't know that going out that way would take him outside a certain someone's bedroom window.


	12. The Woods

When Allen's feet first hit the hard stones on the ground beneath the doorway, he had several urges to get right back inside. The stone was cold, hard, and unforgiving.

It reminded him far too much of the entrance to the lab area that he had just left.

The stone underneath his feet didn't stretch out too far. It was thin and long, forming something of a walkway out to the front yard, about ten paces out. Frankly, the ground beyond the borders of the stone path didn't look much better.

The ground was grassy with a few bare patches that displayed a very dark soil. There was heavy dew all over the dark grass and it made the blades look just as cold as the biting air that pricked his soft cheeks.

Did he want to go back inside? Allen asked himself that question, but he got a conflicting answer: a little bit.

Like many things, it felt, he was scared of the outside. It appeared that everything in his world, on the inside as well as outside, was cold and unyielding. Desolate. The new boy didn't like that his whole world seemed to follow this uncomfortable pattern.

Regardless, the inside wasn't very comforting and the outside wasn't very comforting. Therefore, it really shouldn't matter which he chose . . . and yet he wanted to try being out here. He thought he might have liked to explore, but being disconcerted by everything around him made _that _a little unclear.

_Stop being so unreasonable, _Allen scolded himself. Taking a small breath, Allen took a large step to the side, right off the path.

. . . And immediately jumped right back on. "Ack!" He shrieked quietly. That was cold! Allen's mind flashed back to his interactions with Lavi and Yu. He recalled that they had always been wearing shoes when he had seen them. Why wasn't _he _wearing shoes?

There had been a few articles of clothing in his room, Allen knew. He had seen them. However, there hadn't been any shoes. Why _hadn't _there been shoes? Maybe Lavi didn't think, when he got Allen's clothes, that the boy would need them. Did that mean he wasn't supposed to go outside . . ?

Allen glanced around himself, somewhat casually. "Well, too late for that." Allen muttered to himself, the words spoken by his soft voice were lost to the surrounding forest and the night. Taking a deeper breath, Allen once again leapt off the cold path onto the colder ground, staying there this time.

Ignoring the uncomfortable cold biting into his soft skin, Allen knelt down and ran his fingers lightly over the wet grass. A surprised giggle escaped his pale lips as the blades lightly tickled the tips of his fingers. Did grass always feel as nice as that? Surely, there must have been grass where he came from. Yet, for the life of him, he couldn't remember encountering grass before.

A freezing cold breeze swept through the area, ruffling his hair and bringing his eyes up to the treeline surrounding him.

_I probably shouldn't go in there, _Allen thought to himself as he reluctantly extracted his hand from the grass and stood up. Without a backwards glance at the mansion and with a barely-perceptible hitch in his step, Allen paced off quickly towards the entrance (or maybe the exit) to the forest.

Looking behind himself at his new home before going off might have brought his attention to the figure standing in one of the highest windows of the manor, looking down at him. But, of course, he didn't do that.

Yu Kanda watched from the window in his sleeping quarters. He didn't particularly like having a view to the outside world, felt less irritated when he stood apart from it all. However, there was one good reason for having a large window in his room. Two, if you counted it being a status symbol.

He could see whatever was going on outside directly in front of the manor's front entrance, his window being just above that doorway and very large. Creatures abounded in the night sometimes in _his _forest and it behooved him to get a look at whatever was outside. Lowly creatures, only praying on humans and the weaker members of their own numbers.

There being no humans on his property, few of their various species ever ventured out as far as this. Not that many of them recognized boundaries or were wary enough to avoid the marked territory of a master-level monster, especially the most idiotic ones, but it mostly served their small minds well to mostly stay in areas with a high consentration of humans.

_Then again_, Kanda thought generously. _Perhaps I'm undervaluing their predatory instincts, just a bit. _After all, most humans considered the daylight hours to be quite safe, because most species of monstrous animals stalk the night for prey.

Even the monsters that Kanda considered quite dumb waited until the night to attack the humans or else they only picked off lone humans that were themselves tupid or arrogant enough to wander off from their towns alone.

Even the more dull species' instincts likely told them that their energy and visual acuity would only get better as the world got darker, while that of humans got worse. Instinct (or perhaps experience) probably also told them that humans, weak as they appeared, weren't so weak as to be harmless to them.

This especially proved true when they were grouped up and when a little human bravery was added in. Kanda had long ago learned that respecting the capabilities of humans _did not _mean he had to like them, for which he was grateful.

Kanda had never found that he liked anybody, which was only right, of course.

Demons were rare and with their raw power and intelligence, they were set a world apart. And even among demons, Kanda had set out to prove himself a prince among them. Not to them, of course. He could not have cared less what anyone else thought of him, but he'd wanted to prove it to himself.

Being born as a demon, everything had been a competition. A fight. Simply to live to maturity, he knew, would be the hardest part of his entire life. But he knew he was special, right from the beginning.

If he didn't keep his eye on the prize, he would fail and he would die, but his exceptionalness would shine through if he let it. He could have everything he ever wanted and then some and so he worked and he got it.

Failure was not an option.

Movement on the front lawn right beneath his window drew Kanda's mind from his thoughts and directed it to just below him. It was a figure standing solitary and stationary along the stone path leading to his door. Surely a creature?

The demon's brain caught up quickly to what his eyes were seeing, but instead of a zombie or one of those disgusting little things that ate rotting corpses, he saw Lavi's creation. The boy that was meant to be his.

Kanda's eyes sharpened further to better observe and take in what the boy was supposed to be doing out there. Nothing became readily apparent to the demon, it appeared the boy was doing nothing.

Was he stupid or just strange? _Ah, _the boy.

For the first time in a long time, Kanda didn't know what to make of someone _or how he felt about them_. Although he had commissioned the boy to be created, he had offered rather little in the way of directions for how Lavi was to proceed in the creation. He'd simply wanted a lover. He _wanted_ one.

His expectations about the whole affair had been rather high, both because he deserved nothing less than the best in all areas of his existence _and_ because Lavi would be doing the creating. Flighty as his servant sometimes acted, Kanda could admit in his own mind (albeit reluctantly) that a more competent servant he could not find.

Kanda idly wondered if the personality of the creation was a reflection of some sort of failure on Lavi's part or simply the uncontrollableness of life.

While Kanda was not particularly excited about how young a man Lavi had used for his creation, the demon did not see it as a problem. The dead boy had in all likelihood been fifteen years or so, about a year away from maturity as it was considered in their region and in many of those nearby.

No other problem to be had with the appearance. Aside from the unfortunate youth, the boy was quite attractive. One might say beautiful. He had bright eyes and a clear complexion, pale skin and hair. No, the real flaws in the creation lied in his personality.

Combative. Resistant. The being his servant had created seemed overly insistent that he be paid more respect than Kanda, himself! The demon had had half a mind to . . . well, it didn't matter. It was only half his mind, after all, and he had cooled off greatly since their argument.

He still didn't like the little boy that was supposed to be for him, however all but his righteous indignation had departed. Kanda could admit that he was not in any way a man of even temperament. He was one who got angered quickly and calmed down just as fast.

If he had truly done something to hurt the boy, he probably would have found his own actions distasteful soon afterwards. He did not personally consider the scathing words he had said to the boy as hurting him, although Lavi had clearly believed otherwise.

Movement from the ground below quickly snapped Kanda's attention away from his thoughts, once again directing it below.

The boy was moving. Dark eyes watched closely as the boy far below made a strange show of jumping off and back on the stone path on which he had been standing. The boy's puzzling behavior continued as he seemed to start running his hands through the grass and staring at it.

What a strange boy, Kanda couldn't help repeating to himself. Strange, indeed.

The boy then looked up - at the forest. Had something caught his attention? Apparently coming to a decision, the boy then got up, absentmindedly wiping his hands on his pants before slowly but surely heading off towards the treeline.

_What?! _Kanda thought in surprise, leaning his right hand heavily against the window, angling to get a better look. _What is the little fool doing!_

Kanda watched with gritted teeth as the boy disappeared off beyond the trees. The demon's body shook with barely-restrained anger and the urge to do _something. _

After a few precious seconds of watching the treeline and not seeing any movement of Lavi's Creation emerging back out of the trees, Kanda could hold it in no more. In a surprising burst of movement, the dark haired demon took off out of his rooms and made his way to the ground floor.

He would have rathered jump out his window and land on the ground directly in front of where the boy disappeared. It would have been faster, but the window that he had been watching from didn't open. He might have to consider talking to Lavi about changing that if this happened again.

Nevertheless, his superior demonic speed brought Kanda down to the front door in nearly the blink of an eye. _Which is good news for the brat if he finds himself in trouble with something besides me, _Kanda seethed. _When I find him, I'm going to __**kill**_ _him._

Throwing open the door with a flourish, Kanda stepped into the outdoors and, not bothering to close it behind him, marched towards the forest hovering in front of the shadowy mansion.

He was angry enough without the faint smell of another creature suddenly reaching his nose.

Allen was daydreaming.

The fog, or maybe mist, was thickest at ground level, almost hiding the ground and Allen's own feet from his view. The mist that hovered around or above Allen's head was much thinner, merely a thin film in the air. Most of the chill came from the air, but the fog wasn't exactly warm, either.

Allen found that fascinating, but he would have to find and ask Lavi or go back to the library to find out why it behaved the way it did. He had spent a little time looking at the surrounding area attentively, but with the trees and ground looking almost exactly the same as each other, no matter how many of them he passed, he soon found his mind wandering to other things.

The urge to understand his creator had Allen casting his mind back to the walk about their home he and Lavi had shared the previous night, as well as the look he had gotten at the vampire's room.

_Lavi's room had turned out to be one floor up from the basement, laboratory, level. Allen had passed by it several times. The room Allen found himself opening the door to was sparsely furnished, to say the least. Thankfully, the room made up for its lack of furnishings with books. There were books __**everywhere**__._

_There was only one table pressed against the same wall as the door and one desk situated on the opposite wall. The center of the desk was clear and clean, but piled up on all edges of it were various journals, writing implements, and_ _**books**__. Stacks of them. _

_It was one of the cleanest areas in the room. _

_The table by the door was __**completely **__covered with books which didn't seem to be on any one topic, in particular. The floor housed what really looked to be dozens of stacks, too. Stacks that reached up as high or higher than Allen's chest in some spots. _

_There was something else. In the back corner, pressed against a wall and hanging out in shadow, was a coffin. _

_Allen had asked Lavi about it and asked his creator about it and Lavi had simply replied that he slept in it. That it was the only place he felt comfortable enough to sleep in. _

_Something occurred to Allen as he watched the vampire root around in a drawer, before pulling out two unused candles in iron holders. He didn't know why he thought of it, but he did and he had to ask. "How did you get things like the coffin here? I can't imagine you went out and purchased them, so did you or . . ." He didn't know how to finish and so he drifted off instead. _

"_I went out at night. Found someone who would purchase things we needed and deliver them. Several someone's, actually." _

"_Humans?" Allen asked, peering up at him as the vampire ushered him out of the room and closed the door. _

"_Of course. What else?" Lavi gave a light laugh. _

"_And did they know . . ?" _

"_Of course, they did. I didn't tell them, but the fact that I approached them at night and required them to deliver at night - they obviously suspected." _

"_And that wasn't a problem for them?" Allen wondered aloud, taking the candle Lavi handed him while the redhead kept the other. _

"_Some I chose to approach didn't care. Money is money and they didn't want to start a fight they couldn't finish. I suppose some of them had a problem. Morality or some such." Lavi replied. _

"_Did you worry about that?" Allen asked. _

"_Sometimes problems just take care of themselves." Lavi replied, a lighthearted grin stretching his features pleasantly. _

"_I can accomplish a lot of unbelievable things once I put my mind to it. Mind over matter, that's how I was raised." Lavi commented lightly, yet he stared forward at the slowly lighting expanse of dark hallway, something unfathomable swimming in the depths of his emerald eyes. "And no one who decides that they're going to become a problem can hide, day or night."_

_The vampire's grip on the candle he held would have easily bruised a human. _

A loud snapping sound of something stepping on a twig got Allen out of his mind. "Hello?" He called out nervously, glancing around. Was there anyone else there? Another snapping sound had Allen looking around again. He didn't see anything, until he did.

A few feet away, from behind some trees, a shadowy slumped form materialized and slowly stepped forward into the light. Allen's wide eyes were locked on the creature that emerged. It had a face that Allen could have recognized as human once, but a large, grotesque beak protruded from its face. Dark eyes were rimmed with dark skin and showed no pupils.

The creature wore tatted and ripped clothes that barely stayed on its frame. The skin underneath and around was dark gray and wrinkly. One could argue that the form looked emaciated, but that didn't seem right. Strong but wrinkly-looking wings stuck out from the beings wings and spread out behind them, making the creature look inexplicably more horrible.

While Allen was still staring at it, the creature spread its wings even further, spreading its arms out in a strictly threatening gesture, and let out a loud screech. "Aah!" Allen cried out and jolted backward, tripping over something and falling onto his back.

The creature screeched again and before Allen could react, jumped up into the air and went flying at the boy's prone form. It reached nearly seven feet in the air just by jumping and then came down at him. Four feet-three feet-too close!

Something launched into the creature's side through the air, taking it down less than two feet away from Allen. The thing was a slim, black blue but as Allen finally got the breath back in his lungs and scrambling around to see the fight going on off to the side, he recognized the second attacker.

The slimmer figure on top of the winged creature barely had it on the ground before shredding two chunks out of the creature's thigh and hip with its elongated nails. The winged creature stopped fighting and snarling at that point, choosing to slump on the ground in defeat and whimper.

The figure above it snarled one more time and huffed, seemingly agitated and deciding whether it should kill the winged creature or not. Allen didn't want that, but even if he did, he was unsure if he would have been able to stop himself from whispering a name softly into the air.

"Kanda?"


	13. Trying Again

Kanda's eyes seemed to focus slightly when his name was whispered into the cool morning air. He had been looking at Allen before, but it felt like he was seeing _him_ now instead of seeing just another body.

The boy didn't know what to do and he was sure he couldn't say a word if he tried. Large black wings that had not been there when last they met now protruded proudly from the demon's back. Allen didn't know why, but some instinctual part of him wanted to step back from them.

Maybe it was due to the fight that the demon had just engaged in, but the wings arced up above the demon in what could only be considered a warning. A display of dominance. A death threat.

Allen couldn't say how long they were simply looking at each other. Kanda's somehow darkened blue eyes stared deeply into Allen's own lighter hue blue eyes. Kanda's face was completely devoid of emotion and except for the muscles in his arms absently but firmly being used to hold the other winged creature down, his body language was neither relaxed nor taut with stress.

Instead of the piercing look Allen had been treated to in the library, Kanda didn't appear to be trying to peer into him this time. The demon's eyes were instead looking _at_ him, skimming his surface for some kind of information or reaction. He couldn't even begin to guess what.

So yes, he wasn't sure how long the world he was in stood still, just that it felt like forever and that ultimately, it was Kanda who acted. WIth a somehow resigned sounding huff and one could almost _hear_ his brain changing tracks. Briefly turning his attention back to the creature underneath him, the demon gave a last warning snarl and then leapt off of it.

The demon landed in a crouch just a few feet from Allen, then quickly got up and closed the distance between them while Allen could do nothing but watch. The creature stayed on the ground, its head turned away from them as if it didn't dare to even look at Allen now. The boy found himself staring at the winged creature at that revelation so he jerked when Kanda reached out and grabbed him by the upper arm.

Kanda then proceeded to drag Allen back the way they came without wasting a second more. Kanda also didn't spare another glance for the creature he had thrown to the ground.

Allen found himself struggling to keep up with the long-legged demon dragging him away, tripping several times as he risked looking over his shoulder. The mysterious creature didn't move.

When he could no longer see the other creature back through the creeping foliage, he had no choice but to face forward like Kanda. Nothing interesting to be seen there, it was the path he'd walked earlier and as he started to somewhat recover momentarily from the shock of the attack, his brain automatically went looking for things to entertain it.

Perhaps then more than ever, Allen realized that the brain he possessed was an ever-curious one, constantly working, constantly looking. Never content to simply sit still and do nothing. He briefly wondered whose brain it was before, but rapidly shook the idea out of his head before it could gain purchase.

He didn't want to think about that. It was his brain now.

Wasn't that good enough?

A thought occurred to him then as he was looking for something else to think about to occupy himself. Grasping it with both hands, he didn't stop to think before speaking. "You are awake, Kanda?" He found himself asking.

The elder man didn't pause in his walking, but after a few tense seconds, he did turn slightly towards Allen so that the boy could see his face. Or rather, so that he could see the single eyebrow that Kanda raised in his own form of question.

Allen took a moment to think, but then decided to scrap whatever he was thinking. "WHy are you awake?" Because it was apparent to him now that he had fully expected Kanda to be asleep, like Lavi was.

The fact that he wasn't asleep made Allen wonder. Not just about his host's sleep schedule, but about demons in general. He knew absolutely nothing about them, after all, even though his host _was_ one. Perhaps he should have spent his time in the library reading upon demons instead of plants. Hm . . .

"Are you asking why I don't sleep during the day like the Rabbit?" The demon gruffly asked.

"Rabbit. Lavi?" Allen asked, to which Kanda nodded. "Well, yes. He . . . told me that he mostly sleeps all day and then stays up during the night and early morning. That's because the sun hurts him, right?"

Kanda nodded without looking at him. "He can survive in some sunlight, but direct sunlight or sustained exposure would definitely kill him. A quick but very painful way to go." He stated.

Allen looked up at him with wide eyes. That sounded really bad and it was a lot more information than Lavi had given him. Probably, it was something that was harder for the vampire to talk about. Something else . . .

This wasn't the longest conversation they'd had with each other yet, thanks to their corrosive first meeting, but Kanda was actually speaking civilly here. The demon was still clearly stiff and uncaring, but he wasn't actively antagonizing or insulting him! Which was weird. Good, but strange.

He . . . felt like he was seeing a new part of the other man's personality.

A new part that showed there was more to him than just cruelty and open antagonism. When Lavi was giving him information or actually teaching him something that he knew was straight out of a book, he delivered it the same way that Allen thought an excitable teacher would; heavily rewording and paring down the information.

As for Kanda, maybe not the words but the way they were said gave off the impression of being straight out of a book. Now that he wasn't smirking darkly and cutting him sharply with his tongue, Allen saw him as being strangely analytical. Answering technical questions seemed more important to him than being surly, leaving the stilted civility that Allen had first noticed.

"And . . . and you don't have that problem?" Allen found himself asking. He didn't really want to end up pushing too hard on this new peace they've found, but-

"No, I don't." Sharp blue eyes turned back to him. "You don't know much about demons?"

What was he going to say-What was he going to- "I don't know much about a lot of things right now."

Kanda kept looking at him for a moment, then he huffed and turned his eyes back to the path before them. "Demons aren't vampires. We aren't afraid of sunlight and nothing that will kill a vampire will hurt a demon."

Allen didn't smile at that, but it was a close thing. The mansion appeared about a yard in front of them very suddenly to Allen, as if the building had leapt out at them. The trees on the edge of the forest merely parted their branches and there it was.

Kanda, who was already walking ahead of him, calmly opened the door and entered through it. He left the door hanging wide open behind him and Allen closed it lightly behind himself.

Allen was sure he was the only one who felt awkward in those few seconds where they both stood in the foyer silently, looking at each other. Then Kanda turned swiftly on his heel and took off towards the set of stairs that would take him the next floor up.

The demon paused briefly just as he got to the stairs and looked over his shoulder at Allen. "Don't get into any more trouble. I won't save you from your own stupidity again, if you do." With that said, he turned away and took to the stairs. Allen wondered if he should say something, anything, but ended up completely silently watching the other man climb and then disappear into the second floor.

Kanda said he wasn't going to save Allen again if something happened. Did he mean not to get into any more trouble _today _or that he wasn't allowed to get in trouble ever again? It was impossible to tell with Kanda and nothing about his voice gave more away.

He stopped staring in the direction Kanda had wandered off, it wasn't him doing any good. Instead, he headed off to the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat. Lavi did say he had some food he could eat and that he could go to the kitchen to have some whenever he wanted while Lavi was sleeping.

Allen wasn't exactly sure what kind of food was there or where in the kitchen it was, but he did know where the kitchen itself was, at least. Allen wandered through a few doorways and their subsequent rooms, last of which being a dining room, he found a heavy wooden door that he recognized.

This door was different from all of the others in the mansion. One could argue that all of the doors in the mansion were sturdy, as they were all well-made, but this one was _heavy_. As well as having more heft and bulk to it, this door had no design on it and was made from a simpler shaded and slightly chipped (around the edges) wood.

The other doors like the entrance and their bedroom doors were made to look good, with more richly colored woods and intricate, decorative designs carved into them. One could definitely tell that this was the entrance door to a very servant-only area, the kitchen.

The kitchen when he entered was mostly wooden counters and cabinets, with a large pantry door, and a refrigerator. Lavi explained that device to him earlier, saying that some of their food was stored in the large wooden structure and that ice was routinely delivered and put in there to keep the food cold and fresh.

However, Lavi had said that it was food for Lavi and Kanda, Allen's food was somewhere else. So as curious as Allen was to take a closer look at this refrigerator thing, he decided to investigate it another time and went in search of "his" food.

Checking a cabinet that was beneath a counter, Allen found a small square package wrapped in brown paper. Cautiously lifting it out and opening it, Allen was greeted by a square block of something soft and white. It looked vaguely like food. Tugging a very small piece off of one of the corners, the boy popped it into his mouth and tasted it.

Cheese. It was cheese.

He wandered out of the kitchen with his cheese and sat down at the big dining room table to finish it. Allen busied himself with staring at this imperfection in the stonework that was above the fireplace there. It seemed like the fireplace hadn't been used in a while, but then . . . the dining room itself didn't seem particularly often used, just clean.

The wall above the fireplace was made of gray stones, all misshapen hunks of rock, which were piled into a wall together while the spaces in between them filled with concrete. The imperfection was that the concrete around two of the stones off to the side was spotty, very spotty. The filling of concrete around those two stones barely filled and had several patches with no concrete whatsoever.

Cheese finished, Allen wiped his hands on his clothes and, not knowing what to do with it, left the brown paper on the table. Allen let out a light sigh and looked around the room for merely a moment. Then he decided to go to the library and headed for the door.

It was about time he learned about demons and the library would definitely have something.


	14. Where Monsters Are Name-Dropped

How could the library have _nothing_?

Allen had managed to look over the entire library looking for a book on demons, searching casually at first before steadily deteriorating into a frenzy as more time and more shelving sections passed without producing what he wanted. By the end, he had absolutely scoured the library with nothing of substance to show for his efforts.

It was irritating too, as some books had gotten his hopes up. None of them had said _demons_ on their spines or covers, but many of them did claim to be guidebooks or anthologies about monsters. They would surely have a section about demons in them, right? Wrong.

Search as he might, even the books that had their sections about creatures organized alphabetically skipped right over demons without giving them so much as a passing mention. There wasn't even a cliff note on Kanda's species between them all.

_On the bright side, _Allen told himself. _I at least know what attacked me earlier. _

A very commonly mentioned monster in the books was a grotesquely twisted and starved looking creature that was very much like the one Kanda had attacked back in the woods. It was a harpy.

The artist who drew the pictures in this one particular book was really good. The drawing was darkly shaded with sharp lines, giving the harpy on the pages a vicious expression. It even looked slightly scarier than the one he'd actually faced! Allen's blue eyes had scanned over the chapter's information, finding the information on those creatures rather surprising.

Harpies were apparently part of a class of monsters that had previously been human. The book writer hadn't been sure how humans could turn into harpies, just that it did happen though they gave off the impression that the creation of new harpies was a rare thing.

Harpies themselves were common to find, but not common in numbers. They hid in their caves during the afternoon and night, only coming out in the early morning and sometimes stayed out into the late morning. They seemed to be in a constant search for food and always looked emaciated, no matter how much they ate.

Humans had apparently not known for some time whether or not harpies could fly, but a few unlucky individuals reported seeing some of those creatures leaping off the ground into the sky. Harpies had also been sighted since then circling in the air like buzzards in small groups.

Harpies had the apparent reputation among humans as being dangerous, but also very cowardly. The text explained that this was because harpies actively avoided human civilizations and couldn't even be found in large groups amongst themselves, but these monsters were still known to be very vicious.

Human bodies had been found violently ripped apart by harpy claws, but people in groups of three or more have never been attacked by a lone harpy. There had been no recorded instance of that happening, anyway.

Reading this made Allen think back to his encounter with his harpy in the forest surrounding the house. So that was normal for them, then. Harpies were known for attacking lone humans separated from civilization. And . . . they seemed to eat people.

Allen got a quick flash in his mind's eye of his own body, eyes closed and chest ripped open, with bright red blood everywhere. Killed by a harpy.

His heart swelled with thankfulness for Kanda before he shook all of the thoughts regarding the attack from his mind the best he could. Well, all except for one.

_Did this mean he was human? _

It wasn't something he had allowed himself to dwell on before and he wouldn't allow himself to dwell on for too long, but he had wondered once or twice. What was he? He was made from human parts . . . did that make him human?

He had at first wondered if he was perhaps a zombie, only vaguely remembering the term and bare idea of it. Remembered it from where, he didn't know.

Lavi had quickly dispelled that idea during their walk, though, stating that he'd seen zombies before and Allen was not like one. Not at all. They were . . .

An idea shot through Allen's brain and he searched around for the creature books he had been reading, picking up each one as he found them. Only looking for information on demons and the creature that had attacked him, Allen had seen but not paid attention to the section on zombies. Recalling the brief interaction with Lavi, Allen found a renewed interest in them.

In fact, he suddenly thought it could be important to read what he could on all the monsters these books offered. He'd read about zombies and then he'd go back and read each of the books through.

Allen laid back in one of the library's comfy chairs with one of the books in his hands, the others set aside, and opened it to the chapter on zombies. It was an extra long chapter compared to the other monsters in the book, to Allen's surprise.

What the nearly ten pages the book dedicated to zombies amounted to was thus:

Zombies were, by far, the _most common _monster that mankind had ever come across. They could be found in singles often enough, but they most often came in hordes of nine or more. There was no regular horde size for zombies and they ranged from tens to hundred to sometimes thousands of individuals.

There had been occurrences in the past where individual towns were inexplicably beset by record-sized hordes (a size that the book could not or would not disclose). In these situations, the towns were sometimes under siege for several weeks worth of nights.

This last statement about the nights being worth several weeks had confused Allen at first. It just seemed like a strange or perhaps strangely specific thing to put in there. That is, until he got nearly right to the end of the chapter and found his explanation there.

Hordes of zombies were known among certain regions as "the mists" and that nickname was based on one of the more perplexing aspects of the zombie's behavior. A zombie disappeared at first light and reappeared, often in waves, and only reappeared again after the moon rose. Much like mist, to some people's minds.

Where they went to during the day, no one knew. Efforts by small groups of individuals to follow them to find out where they went only resulted in those individuals never being heard of again. Presumably dead.

Zombies were not the only creatures that were exclusively active at night, not by a long shot. Yet, they seemed to have no physical weaknesses to sunlight, but in small quantities. It was common for humans to venture outside of their homes at night and not come across a single zombie, much less a horde.

Still, like other monsters, zombies were a very present threat to a human's life and had collectively killed more humans in the last decade than could be counted. People venturing out at night for either work or leisure are the most at risk, but being inside shelter is no guarantee of safety from a zombie.

Zombies seemed to not be able to smell or they otherwise just had an exceptionally weak sense of smell. The creatures were only capable of making a very low hissing sound and affecting a slow, shambling walk. They completely lacked the ability to run or job and have never been seen moving forward using anything more than the slow walk. They smelled strongly of decay and death.

Humans could easily outrun a horde of zombies, but can just as easily be snuck up on by a single one or surrounded by a group of them. However, if humans in a dwelling found their home the subject of a zombie horde's attention, then they had better hope that the structure can withstand said attention.

Most _could _withstand a zombie attack for long periods, but some structures or just their doors might not be up to the task. In those cases, a group of zombies or even a single one of them could be able to break down the door or an especially weak wall in the course of one night.

This is due to some of the zombie's identifying characteristics being their strength and their tenacity. Not too many monsters are characterized by greatly enhanced strength, but zombies were one of them. In some rare cases it has been observed that a zombie could break solid oak doors by bashing their fist into the same few spots in the door and creating a massive weak point.

This is both helped and hurt by the fact that there seems to be no recognizable brain activity going on in zombies. Besides the abilities to recognize and prey on humans with the added ability to actively attack structures that protect humans from them, there is no evidence that zombies have ever used the ability to _think _or _reason_.

To this end, not being a thinking creature allows them to continue a sustained and unflinching attack until the sun comes up. Long past the point that another creature would have decided the effort futile and left in search of easier prey.

One of the many, many more intelligent creatures out there that preyed on humans could do things like looking for glass windows which would break easier with less force, hide quietly and hope that the humans they're hunting think they've left and lower their guard, or even mimic the voices of other humans in order to draw them out.

Zombies do not do this. They do not become quiet in the effort to lull their prey into a false sense of security and they did not care how accessible prey was. A human out in the open would probably be attacked first over one cowering their home even if both got the zombies attention, but zombies would never, ever actively look for easy prey. Simply prey.

Reading about them, Allen felt a vague but strong sense of unease. If someone were there in the library with him to ask why he found himself so unsettled by zombies now that he'd read of them and knew what they were, it would probably have been their lack of thought.

Allen could see now why Lavi had been able to state so easily that Allen was definitely not a zombie when he'd been asked about it. The boy might not . . . know what he was exactly or what it meant for him, but he wasn't a zombie. He could see that now.

Zombies were predators, but they didn't think. Like a gun that fired on its own but had no one to guide it. If nothing else, he thought _way too much _to be one of those.

There was, however, the last passage of the chapter that really got to Allen, even more so than the rest of the reading. It was short and simple, but said that zombies arose from the dead. They dug their ways out of shallow graves or shambled paths out of forests or other scenes of murders. Like many other monsters, no one knows how zombies are created, although various regions of human settlements had their own suspicions on how it happened.

And while everyone, _everyone _knew that zombies shambled off at first light in the morning even when they'd been in the middle of an attack only moments earlier, none could supply the answer to where the creatures went off to. As far as hunters could tell, no zombie ever returned to the place where it had awakened as a zombie, whether that be their family homes or their grave, once they left it.

Chillingly, some people had tried to follow groups of zombies to see where they disappeared off to during the daylight hours only to either completely lose track of the zombies and return to their towns just as confused as before or to be lost track of themselves and never be heard from again.

Harpies lived in caves, Bunyips lived in swamps, Manticores lived in jungles, and Zombies . . . no one knew.

Allen had so many questions at the end of it that he didn't know what to do with himself. Well, he knew he would have to read as much about these and other monsters as he could and try to commit as much information to memory as he could. That much he knew, but his brain was churning violently with all the questions he had after the reading.

Not only could he not stop thinking about where zombies disappeared off to, but he also found himself wondering where they came from. This book didn't answer these questions. How were they created, yes, but who were they before they died?

How did their families feel about their loved ones rising from the dead with a hunger for human flesh? Could children become zombies? What would these people have thought about what they would become? Truly, who were these people before they had died.

Who had _he_ been . . .

. . . before he'd died?


	15. What We Are

The second he woke up, Lavi made a beeline for the kitchen area. He didn't often drink a serving of blood before going to sleep and when he didn't, he woke up deeply parched. Like a human might be if they had to be without any kind of water for ten hours.

His vampiric speed got him down the several floors to the kitchen in a few blinks of the eye. The vampire opened up the fridge and took out a glass jug filled with a heavy, viscous liquid. As Lavi was pouring himself a glass of chilled blood, his nose pricked up the faint scent of another being heading that way.

Multitasking was the easiest thing in the world for this vampire, so Lavi continued to let his nose investigate the smell while he tipped his head back and chugged back a full glass of the red stuff. Lavi was incredibly good at splitting his senses to take in as much different information as possible. He had to be, what with his training as a human . . . but he wasn't human anymore.

And that was a long time ago.

The redhead's ears twitched slightly as he picked up the sounds of footsteps moving quietly around on the floor directly above him. The floorboards could be creaky sometimes but even still, if he'd been human he wouldn't have heard it, but as a vampire, it was clearly audible.

Since there were only two other creatures in the house unless one of the things that live in the forest broke in, Lavi decided to wait for whoever it was to come to the kitchen, if that was indeed what they were doing.

Meanwhile, he poured himself another glass of blood before putting the jug back into the fridge. He sipped more leisurely at the glass this time, already having had his fix.

As he was waiting, thoughts of the mansion's other occupants brought Lavi's mind back to Allen and Yu. "That was certainly one explosive meeting." He mumbled to himself, quietly enough that he shouldn't be heard if it was Allen.

If it was Kanda, well that was another story. The demon's senses were even better than his. Even among demons, Yu was powerful and he certainly didn't get that way by accident. Anyways, if it was Kanda, maybe it would be best if he heard Lavi muttering about his disastrous first meeting with Allen.

For all the teasing and joking he sometimes did, Lavi was normally reluctant to truly push his master. Kanda wasn't evil, but he was just about as close to it as one could get without crossing over that line. Lavi's position as his servant was only secure insofar as Kanda continued to not be completely evil and that he also didn't want to go to the probably futile effort of finding someone to replace Lavi.

Not many people would serve a demon without being kidnapped and held at the mansion against their will and not having a single servant that wouldn't run for the hills if they could was a large annoyance that Yu was way too intelligent to overlook.

Having said that, Lavi knew not to push too hard. He had gotten very good at knowing where that line was and staying several paces away from it. Being a demon and being himself made Kanda a lot of nasty things, including arrogant and impatient. Not that all of those traits were unwarranted, but it was still terrible and surprisingly violent when those two finally met.

Probably unlike Yu, Lavi had put a good amount of thought into what kind of personality his creation would have. The tricky part was that there was nothing the vampire could do to impact that. The procedure to create Lavi was already a new personal experience for Lavi and it was one that had the potential to go very wrong if a single misstep was made.

It wouldn't have been advisable to split his focus too much by additionally trying to craft more of his creation's personality, even if it had been within his capabilities to do so. Which, again, it hadn't been.

That knowledge did give Lavi a certain amount of discomfort.

Even as a human, he had never liked the idea of there being some things that science and magic could not recreate. Things like a creature's personality or a human's soul, that none of his books or experience could touch. He didn't like that, not at all.

The steps were coming towards the kitchen door now. This close, Lavi could tell that it was the youngest of his housemates that was approaching. The footsteps were less firm than Kanda's and while the demon's steps were normally quick and elegant, they were also overall much louder than the young boy's. In comparison, Allen's footfalls were more unrefined, but had less weight and purpose behind them.

Within the time it took to think that, the white haired boy had entered the small room, stopping just beyond the doorway. From the look in them as his blue eyes landed on Lavi, the vampire could tell that Allen wasn't surprised to see him there. If anything, Allen seemed to have sought him out at this time.

Maybe he should have expected that, Lavi thought to himself. The boy was still so new and he definitely didn't have the same antisocial tendencies that both Kanda and Lavi had. With him on the outs with Kanda at the moment, he probably knew that it was best to avoid the demon for a good while and so of course Allen would seek Lavi out for company.

As well as that, Lavi supposed he might also want answers to all sorts of questions he thought of, as he had been doing every night he'd been around him. The boy was so new, after all. _So _new.

Humans were so young compared to _their _kinds and even compared to other humans, Allen was but an infant. Lavi didn't fight a kind smile appearing on his face as he thought of it. The young man was just as inquisitive and curious as an infant would be, too.

With Kanda not being much of a team player or even much for talking, maybe Lavi felt just a little bit pleased with someone who would ask him questions, seeking answers. Someone who would look up to the knowledge he held.

The vampire had been somewhat forced to live a very solitary life once he'd become a . . . well . . . a vampire. He was finding he'd forgotten what it felt like to have a real discussion with someone.

"Good night. Morning?" Allen asked this timidly but he sounded a little more at home now.

_Good_, Lavi briefly thought. _It would be a shame if he always felt on edge in his home. Especially since he's certainly not going anywhere. _"You can call it either." Lavi assured. "Have you been up to much today, Allen?"

"I talked to Kanda. Only a little." Allen quietly stated after some minute hesitation.

Lavi fought his body tensing for all of a second before giving into it. "Whoa! Are you okay? How did it go?" Lavi wasn't the lightest sleeper in the world, but he would have probably woken up if they were yelling or fighting that loudly.

And Allen was here. So their second meeting couldn't have been too bad, right? Right. Allen had seemed to mull over his answer while Lavi was thinking and smiled a bit wider upon coming to his answer.

"Better than last time." The boy settled on. "We talked for a little bit, not much."

Well, that wasn't vague at all. Probably his fault, Lavi decided. Lavi knew he gave informative, detailed explanations to things roughly half the time and was vague or evasive about certain questions the other half.

That wasn't good, the blood had barely dried on the operating table and he was already teaching the boy bad habits.

Damn, with him and Yu as his only points of reference for normalcy, the little guy was doomed.

Lavi was just about to open his mouth to say something, probably changing the subject, Allen spoke again. Surprisingly, he chose to give more information about his latest interaction with Kanda. Maybe he and Yu hadn't managed to ruin him yet.

"We actually talked more when we were in the woods. He left me almost as soon as we got back." Allen said this very hesitantly, a wary look on his face. Lavi understood why when Allen's words and the implications behind them sunk in.

"What?" Lavi cried out, his green eyes widening comically. "You two were in the woods! Why What were you doing?"

Concern flooded the vampire's system, part of his mind surprised by how strong it was even while the rest of it was completely focused on the unsettling information that had just been thrown at him.

Had Yu been trying to kill him and dispose of the body at the same time or maybe get him killed by something else? He'd been unhappy with Allen after the fight they had, even insinuating to Lavi that the boy had been made wrong or some such, but he couldn't have been thinking of trying to get rid of the boy so soon, could he?

The demon took out living inconveniences like they were trash, but he'd never been quite so rash as that even with his notable temper. Besides, Allen was still here. If the demon truly wanted the boy out of his hair permanently, it could have happened quickly and easily while the vampire slept, unaware.

The fact that Allen was still among them had to mean that Kanda had changed his mind about killing him, then. Or alternatively, Kanda could have been his usual judgemental and demanding self and he'd wanted Allen to understand things about their home and his position in it quicker than he was?

"Eh heh . . . You see, the thing about that is - -" Allen laughed nervously, ruffling his hair. "I sort of snuck off into the forest around the house by myself." _Snap! _The cup Lavi's hand was wrapped around broke under the vampire's crushing grip and he dropped the remaining shrapnel on the table.

"You did what?" Lavi could feel a darkness settling over his features, an aspect of himself that he was intimately familiar with but Allen clearly wasn't.

"I - - well, I mean - - I -" The boy's pale features twisted in the beginnings of fear, with surprise being the most prominent emotion being displayed to the redhead at the moment.

"Absolutely _what _made you think that was a _good _idea?" The vampire demanded, well and truly angry at the young man's thoughtless recklessness.

Allen seemed to somewhat pull himself back together at the question. "Well . . . nothing made me think it was a _bad_ idea." He offered, peering up nervously at the other man to see how he would react.

Lavi's initial internal response was for his ire to temporarily rise. How _foolish_ was - -

But that line of thought stopped him and just as soon as it crossed his mind, he found his anger ebbing. How foolish was it really, though?

Allen didn't really know much of anything about other monsters after he had awakened, any memories he could have otherwise had from his previous life seemingly suppressed. Added to that, the boy had been alive for less than a hundred hours and during that time, he'd only inquired about monsters a handful of times. Mostly vampires and demons.

Not surprising since he lived with _them. _

Except for a short snippet of a comment about zombies, Lavi couldn't recall any mention he'd made about other monster species and how they related to Allen and his life in general.

Allen was probably running on absolutely no information on the vast majority of creatures that could pose a threat to him and, now that the redhead was on the track of thinking about it, likely had no concept for the danger he would be in just by leaving the mansion.

It seemed cruel to Lavi now to expect so much of the boy while he had been setting him up for failure.

Suddenly feeling weary and letting out a loud sigh, Lavi closed his eyes, something he felt he always did when he was capitulating to someone else. "Please don't do that again, Allen." He said simply. His tone of voice was still unmistakably serious but also lighter than before.

"Don't worry, I know that now." Allen's relieved and sheepish voice drew the vampire's eyelids back up. "I didn't realize how dangerous they were. I was actually attacked by something while I was out there and Kanda saved me." The boy's face matched his tone; light embarrassment.

"_Yu_ saved you?" Lavi asked incredulously as he looked at the boy deeply in curiosity. At the same time, he tried not to get worked up again about the fact that Allen had been attacked by something.

"Yes." Allen immediately replied, nodding furiously. "He did it really easily, as well. The other creature was fast or at least I thought it was, but he was faster. _Much_ faster."

"I'm sure he was." Lavi replied without thinking about it. "Demons are unlike any other creatures in the world. They are faster, stronger, and smarter than anything you'll ever deal with. Be happy you have one on your side." The vampire shut his mouth quickly when he realized that it might become too obvious that he was speaking from personal experience here.

Allen seemed thoughtful at his words, possibly taking them to heart. His blue eyes looked unfocused for a time, as if he were looking off somewhere far away. Then his eyes came back from wherever they were and the words that came out of his mouth made the vampire stiffen up again.

"Lavi, where did I come from?" Allen asked, his voice vulnerably soft and quiet.

". . ." Lavi's mouth was left gaping, he hadn't been prepared for this. What did he say? He didn't know all of where Allen came from, but he knew where some of him came from, having harvested some of the ingredients himself. Would it really be a good idea to tell the young man the gritty details of his inception? Would Yu want the boy to know? "I created you in my lab, of course. You know that."

"I know _that_. But where did my brain come from? My body? My eyes?" A screaming woman crossed Lavi's mind as those blue eyes pleaded with him to answer the boy's questions.

"I . . ." The vampire turned his eyes away briefly before he looked back and doubled down. "It's not important, Allen. Who you were doesn't matter around here, it's all about who you are now. You were created here and here you'll stay so the outside world doesn't matter. It's best if you focus on creating your new self and getting along with Yu. You were created for _him_, after all."

The vampire could only hope that would shut the young man down and it seemed to work. "Oh. I . . . Okay. I'll . . . try to do that." The white-haired head gave a small nod of goodbye to the vampire and the boy turned on his heel and exited the room without further comment.

The vampire breathed a sigh of relief when the boy was out of hearing range and leaned against the counter to support himself, glad to have dealt with the issue. But . . .

. . . he couldn't help but feel strangely, vaguely that he had made some sort of mistake.

Deep down inside of himself.


	16. Moratorium

_Who you were doesn't matter around here. _

_It's all about who you are now. _

Maybe those words were meant to be comforting. Maybe they should have been comforting.

To Allen in that moment, they only felt like a death sentence. Like they were trying to kill the lingering traces of whoever he'd been. Maybe he was being dramatic, but it truly felt like that was the purpose of the words when they were spoken.

Anyhow, Allen found himself walking aimlessly among the hallways of the mansion. He didn't really have anywhere to go and, he realized, he didn't have anything to do. He had contented himself for the entire day with reading about the various monsters that inhabited his world. It had the duel purpose of appeasing his interest in the world and hopefully making sure he didn't fall prey to them again.

He thought he could spend some time talking to Lavi about his origins, but after the response that attempt garnered, all he had wanted was to get out of that room as quickly as he could. He could go to sleep, except he wasn't tired and he didn't know when he would be . . .

His Origins.

The words all but literally slam into his mind without any trigger or warning.

_How strange, _Allen thought. Even stranger, it took him a few seconds to even understand what his own thoughts meant. His origin or at least the closest thing he could get to identifying as his origin without Lavi's help was the basement. The lab.

It was the first place Allen remembered seeing. It was the place he had woken up in and, as far as could be ascertained, he'd been completely created there. Surely if any hints about who he was besides this blank slate existed, it would be there.

. . . But did he really want to do that?

Lavi had been very clear about his annoyance at Allen trying to find out about his past, if such a thing even existed for him.

If he went back to the lab for that specific purpose, then he would be doing something that he actively knew the vampire wouldn't like _and _although Lavi had never said anything about restrictions on where he could go in or around the mansion during the tour, he wasn't sure if he was truly allowed back down there.

The basement level had been pointedly left out of the tour (along with Kanda's rooms) the redhead had given him of the home.

He'd made some mistakes and missteps since he'd awakened - it certainly felt like he'd made far too many for the short amount of time he'd been awake - but he'd made those mistakes by not knowing or understanding what his roommates wanted of him.

To do something that he already had a feeling would be heavily frowned upon was a marked change in mentality for him. One he couldn't quite convince himself he was ready for.

Besides the can of worms that could be opened if Lavi caught him doing it, he wasn't sure how he would be able to look his guardian in the eye ever again afterwards even if the vampire did not find out about it.

And there was something else.

In conjunction with his thoughts, Allen's feet had taken him to the edge of the stairwell that led down to the basement level. There it was again.

For all his mental references to it being the "Basement" or the "Lab"; deep inside himself, he had given it another name. The Dark Place. He could argue and discuss with himself all he wanted. He could make all sorts of decisions, but the real thing he needed to convince himself of was this. Going down there.

The same feeling he had confronted earlier, the one that spoke of a darkness and a chill that would drive any rational person away. Allen certainly felt driven away, but Lavi worked down there. It almost made Allen think that the older man was more insane than he showed off.

Who else could go down there and stay down there like it was nothing? Or maybe Lavi was uncomfortable down there, too? . . . Unlikely. It was his area, after all, he controlled what happened down there.

In an echo of the last time he'd found himself staring into that foreboding abyss, Allen turned on his heel and headed back down the hallway without even bothering to try and brave the Dark Place.

Hopefully the rest of his days weren't going to be like this because otherwise this was going to be a long lifetime, but for now he wasn't about to venture into the basement. He could find something else to busy himself with until he was ready to sleep, but not that.

He wasn't ready for that.

Kanda was contemplating.

He did that a great deal, he would admit. Simply sitting in his quarters on his bed and staring off into space or out of a window was not in any way unusual for him. At the moment, he was specifically thinking about a little, white haired creation.

He would say that the . . . boy . . . definitely wasn't what he had expected, but it dawned on him during his contemplation that it was difficult to quantify exactly what he _had _expected. Something - someone - who was obedient, that was easy enough to say.

Kanda would allow dissent in small doses from the beings around him, something he had learned over the years was necessary in some capacity when dealing with people other than himself, but he required subservience over all else. He was Yu Kanda, a high demon. Other creatures, be they monsters or humans, held no candle to him and they shouldn't dare to act like they do.

While there was an adjustment period, to be sure, the Rabbit understood this exceptionally well. He'd watched the vampire for a good time before acting on his surveillance. Despite being caught by humans and contrary to everything about his appearance and personality, Lavi was indeed an observant and intelligent individual. Honestly, the personification of competence.

It was why Kanda had saved him all those decades ago with the intention to make the vampire serve him and continued to have the redhead serve him to this day. It was nothing he would admit out loud, but the other man was an asset. One he would not suffer losing, no matter how frustrated he might get sometimes.

Perhaps he hadn't given the lesser species his due in the end, though. Due in part to his own apparent ignorance of the process and the massive accomplishments of his own life, Kanda had not really thought the process of creating a being like he had commissioned to be an overly arduous one.

Difficult perhaps, but nothing Lavi would be unable to do and for the most part, the demon was correct. The vampire, with his usual diligence and premeditation, proceeded to create a being that _looked_ absolutely perfect and truly did come to life. The being that came up with the unexplained name of _Allen _appeared to be as human as the body parts it - he - had been made up of.

What came with Allen's resurrection was apparently human level intelligence and a will of his own. Oh, he certainly had that.

Kanda groaned as he recalled his first meeting with the Rabbit's spawn. Whatever unnamed expectations he'd had when he'd seen the creation and approached him had been blown apart pretty immediately.

He had never been challenged so furiously and so frequently in such a short amount of time than he had in that instance. It had angered him greatly, pushing him to points of cruelty that were unusual even for him. The demon would not argue that he felt guilt or remorse for how he head treated the creation he'd commissioned in those moments.

However, he would at least say that he may have been too hasty, a bit too angry. Too emotional. The boy was young even in appearance and even younger in actuality. Kanda had been short tempered with Lavi, as well, during the adjustment period when the vampire had first started serving him.

There were some missteps or miscommunications as the two monsters got a feel for each other's personalities and how they played off of each other. Things were yelled. Things were broken. Moving on.

Lavi had the advantage of being a more calculating person by nature despite his more bouncy and excitable personality. Being a lone vampire that needed to feed off of humans, who were fearful and had a habit of producing the odd vampire hunter from their populace, had also taught him how to instinctually act with hesitance. He knew how to blend in and lay low long before Kanda started watching him.

Allen, it was easy to tell, had none of this on his side. He seemed to have few experiences with anything as far as Kanda could tell and while the boy definitely had a more demure appearance and aura about him, it also became readily apparent that he had a hot-blooded personality underneath that, which Kanda would privately admit was eerily reminiscent of his own.

The boy could apparently turn from quiet and unassuming to a riled up cat, hissing and spitting with a vengeance. And he could do so faster than Kanda could adjust. That was one of the main points of the matter, wasn't it? Kanda saw him, watched him, and approached.

From doing so, he thought he knew what to expect when he began to interact with the boy and when that changed before he could gain ground, he got irritated and the resulting actions from that agitated the boy.

It had taken some time for Kanda to be able to acknowledge that there may have been something wrong with how he handled the situation - that he might have been as much at fault (in his own way) as Allen had been for the disagreement getting so out of control. Again, it was nothing he would admit aloud or to anyone else.

Yet, he now thought that he had pushed too far much too quickly. Had expected too much of the boy before the situation had truly had time to settle.

He wasn't there to cater to the whims of a child or the curiously protective vampire that created him. If anything, Allen was created to cater to _him_, but Kanda ultimately decided that he could find it within himself to extend some understanding to the boy.

The concept of doing so was not the most displeasing thing Kanda had found himself forced to consider during his existence . . . although it was still mildly unpleasant.

Besides, distasteful or otherwise, the demon didn't seem to have much of a choice in the matter.

As had been pointed out to him by a nosy redheaded vampire directly after the fight, if he continued on the same path of behavior without changing a thing about his approach, fighting will likely continue to happen. They wouldn't achieve anything from that and everyone involved would continue to be upset. He **hated** when the Rabbit was right about something.

Kanda had been quite resistant to changing his approach for some time after the argument, but he had calmed enough to consider it in a more practical way. He sat and he considered how to proceed anew when he was forced to abandon his home to follow the suicidal idiot of a boy into the surrounding woods.

He had stalked steadily into the woods after the boy, but he hadn't used his demonic speed to track the boy. That proved to be something of a mistake as when he found Allen moments later, the boy was right in the middle of being attacked by one of the bottom feeders that lived in the forest. Letting his demonic nature take control quickly resolved the situation and because Kanda wasn't feeling particularly angry at the time, he even let the bottom feeder live.

He would admit to not having put much effort into conversing with the boy after saving him, but the demon still thought it had gone well. Not dissolving into uncontrollable fighting was something, at least.

At least the boy seemed inquisitive enough, the questions less annoying than Kanda may have assumed them to be. He wasn't sure why he was caught off guard by the white haired boy's lack of knowledge about demons in general, but he was.

Something he would fix later. He couldn't stand incompetence from those around him and that especially went for Allen, since his presence had a special purpose. Something he would have to approach the boy about soon, since he's about had his time to adjust.

Allen (or whatever he wished to call himself) was his, after all. Time to see what human relationships had that his didn't.


	17. Remember, You Are Mine

Allen had felt a vague feeling of doom for the entire hour before Kanda found him. He'd spent the several hours since leaving Lavi in a shroud of melancholy, which was something that was becoming increasingly familiar as the few days since his waking in the laboratory passed. Allen wouldn't go so far as to call himself depressed, but there were things about being alive again and being in his new home that weighed on him more than he thought they would.

Somewhere during those hours of aimless melancholy, Allen ended up in his rooms and an almost just as aimless feeling of dread settled on his shoulders. As if he were apprehensive about something that was going to happen, but he didn't know what that something was.

The feeling drove him a little crazy in the hour it took for that thing his instincts were worried about to happen, so much so that when the hour was up and his bedroom door was thrown open with force to reveal his demonic host in the doorway, Allen was almost relieved.

"Almost" being the operative word, there.

Even if their last interaction had been the breath of fresh air in their new relationship that Allen had needed to feel more comfortable with the other man, his host was still an intimidating figure. And if the way he attacked that Harpy in the forest and the way it reacted to him was any indication, there was a good reason for that.

The demon in question stepped into the room, his lengthy height on full display (whatever it may be). Allen watched with stiff shoulders, his tongue feeling equally so, as Kanda cast his cold blue eyes judgmentally around Allen's bedroom. The boy found himself desperately wanting to know what it was that the older man saw.

To Allen, the room looked incredibly large and while the colors seemed incredibly dour to him, it was still beautifully furnished. Ignoring those, the room felt lived-in but undeniably empty. Some books Allen took from the library were the only personal items in the room. He doesn't know if Kanda saw that or cared about it. . . . Was he disappointed?

The demon seemed to grow tired of looking around the room and turned his head to Allen, not even bothering to take in the boy's appearance. Instead, he just honed in on his face. Allen felt his body stiffen even more and how surprising it was that that was even possible!

The demon opened his thin lips, briefly showing off his sharp canines as he spoke. "How have your first few days here been?" He inquired, sounding mildly disinterested in the question even as he asked it.

"What?" Allen said at first. Then he jolted as his brain caught up to the statement and his response to it, hurrying to get a better response out before he angered his host. "Oh! It has been . . . fine, a lot to get used to."

The demon hummed in response. What that hum was supposed to mean, Allen couldn't even fathom, though not for lack of trying. "So you would say you've settled well, despite the attack earlier?" Allen might have thought he was imagining the mocking lilt to the words if it wasn't for the barest hint of a smirk that passed across the demon's face.

"Uh, yes! I would say that . . ." Allen said with wide eyes. _I wonder where he's going with this, _Allen wondered, though he needn't have.

"Since you've had time to settle, I think it is about time to let you know what I expect from you." The dark demon stated decisively.

A small lump formed in Allen's throat. _What he expects from him? _"What you expect from me?"

The demon took two swift steps towards the boy and Allen only stopped himself from stepping back through sheer force of will. Kanda was now standing less than a foot away and looming over him. He didn't even have that threatening of an expression on, it was mostly intensely blank!

"Were you told about why you were brought back?" The demon answered his question with another question. His blue eyes pierced into the younger boy like actual daggers.

"I . . . I was told I was to be yours. Your lover . . . or something." Allen muttered distractedly, hypnotized by those cerulean eyes. He still didn't know how to feel about that order, mostly because he didn't feel anything about it. Even as most of the numbness in his ability to feel things waved as time went on, he still felt numb regarding this.

It meant absolutely nothing to him.

Kanda's nose seemed to scrunch briefly at the mention of being a "lover", but he quickly straightened his features out again. "Quite. I let you become acclimated to your new life before requiring action from you, but that's over now. From this day onward, we will spend a few hours every day together." The demon ordered.

Allen peered at him curiously. "What will we be doing?" He dared to ask, tilting his head in curiosity.

The demon was quiet for a minute. "We will be doing things that human lovers do. I've watched them and we will emulate them." He seemed to think that was enough of an explanation. Allen didn't.

"But why?" Allen - perhaps unwisely - pressed. "Why are we going to be emulating humans? Why do you want a lover in the first place?" He couldn't help it, _he wanted to know_.

The demon _tsked _irritably, warning the younger boy off. "You don't need to know that, you just need to know what you're told to do. We will pick up tomorrow, any questions _of importance_?" The demon asked impatiently, as if he already wanted to leave.

This didn't make any sense to Allen, he really didn't get it. Why did the demon want a lover when he seemed to dislike sharing his company with anyone? Why did he find it so important to emulate humans? Why did he create Allen for this instead of finding himself another lover, perhaps another demon? He thought about how he wanted to say that . . .

"Would another demon not be better for this?" Allen tried to keep the hesitance out of his voice. Couldn't a demon understand Kanda better? He didn't even know the first thing about demons as a species, nevermind how to be a good lover to one!

This question actually made the demon pause. "No." He said finally, his voice quieter this time. "No, another demon would not be better." He finished.

There was . . . something . . . in his voice that made any other questions Allen might have had dry up in his throat. He wanted to ask . . . but he didn't. There was a solemnity there that even one as curious as Allen couldn't help but respect.

There was something he didn't know there that Kanda did.

The boy also couldn't help but be aware of a small - very small - burst of warmth that appeared in his chest at indirectly being told that he was better than Kanda's own kind. He didn't want to know where that came from, but he nonetheless knew it was there.

"If that is all." Kanda said suddenly. As if that were the only parting words he needed, the demon turned and quickly made his way to the door, reaching for and opening it before Allen properly had time to react.

"Wait!" Allen followed him hurriedly with smaller steps and called out right before Kanda left the room, suddenly needing to have his answer to something very badly. The question - the _need _\- came to him almost as quickly and without warning as it had with Lavi.

And he was expecting the same response.

The demon responded by stopping and turning around to face the recovered human, a mild look of confusion on his dark features.

"I-Is who I was before . . . before all this - before I died - does it really not matter at all? Is it really something I should just forget? I know I don't remember any of it anyway, but . . ." Allen turned away here, feeling silly even as he forced himself to ask.

The words Lavi had said still rung in his head. That it didn't matter who he had been, just who he had to be now. It still felt stifling, claustrophobic. Like it was trying to crush who he had been with the weight of who he should be-

"I don't think so." The surprising words, spoken by his demonic companion.

Allen's eyes snapped to him in shock as he struggled to understand the words he didn't dare hope to hear. "What?" Allen could only barely manage to ask. Had he just . . . heard that? It must be a mistake.

"Did I stutter, Beansprout? I said that I didn't think so." The demon replied semi-irritably. Luckily for Allen's frazzled mind, he chose to elaborate. "I don't think who you were before is unimportant. It may be unimportant to myself, but your own past should be important for you. Even if you don't remember it, a person's past has a way of haunting you, following you where you go and arising at inopportune moments."

As if on cue from those unsettling words, Kanda's eyes got a faraway look in them before abruptly resettling on Allen with a startling intensity that actually caused the white haired boy to take a half step back. The demon continued as if he hadn't noticed.

Also, what did he just call him?

"If it bothers you that much, ask the vampire or find out yourself. Just don't let it distract you too much. Your primary attention should be learning to be a perfect lover to me and doing what I direct you. Remember what your main task is and there shouldn't be a problem." Having given his permission, the demon didn't say anything more and swirled out of the room with his usual demonic flair.

His footsteps were so light that Allen wouldn't have believed he was walking if the boy wasn't witnessing it. Only the sound of the door creaking signalled the older man's disappearance.

Allen just watched him go with a feeling of numbness. That couldn't have happened, right?

He'd dared to ask the question, but he hadn't dared to hope for a better answer than what he had gotten before. Certainly not what he'd just gotten.

Kanda, _the irascible demon that is Kanda, _just . . . he just encouraged him, didn't he? He told Allen what Lavi wouldn't, that it was okay to still care about your past no matter what and that he should look into it. Sure, the encouragement had a caveat to it that he shouldn't get too distracted, but he still said it!

Allen felt a wide smile tug onto his face as he stared at the door to his room.

Kanda . . . Kanda . . .

. . . he wasn't so bad, was he?


	18. Ours

Allen didn't know how long he stayed in his room, thinking over the encounter he'd just had. It was far from a beautiful experience, but it was far better than he'd come to expect lately and what he said about Allen holding onto who he was . . .

Almost against his will, Allen felt a swell of warm happiness rising in his stomach.

Well, if Kanda said it would be alright, then surely it would be! Any questions he might have had about what was morally right for him to do in this situation were now swept away with this acknowledgment from his supposed-to-be partner.

And since Lavi served Kanda too, then he couldn't get too upset at Allen for doing something that he had permission to do. That, too!

With his newly granted permission to look into what he could of himself, Allen jauntily left his quarters and headed to what was quickly becoming his favorite room in the mansion, the library. His feet carried him to the room with absolutely no conscious thought, allowing Allen's mind to wander as his eyes gazed around the now familiar hallways.

He doubted Lavi would just leave a notebook or other writing about Allen specifically in the library - if that existed, it would probably be in the basement - but perhaps some information on how he was brought back to life?

The library was the place for books and from Allen's previous trips to the place, it contained a fair amount of books on each topic. Allen's feet transferred from the hard wood of the hallway to the comparatively softer wood of the library room and Allen's eyes drifted around the variety of shelving structures.

He needed to decide where he was going to start looking. Despite the fact that it was an upscale library and how well kept the rest of the mansion was, the library had no strict organization to it.

_That_ Allen found out the first opportunity he took to spend time there recreationally.

Sure, there were shelves and books were on them . . . books were also on the floor. In piles. And on the scant tables in the room. In piles.

He supposed he should be grateful for the tables even being there, otherwise the books might be in the piles on the floor and the piles on the floor were - no joke - taller than him while he was _standing_.

He felt the urge to check to see if Lavi was buried in one of them. Regardless, Allen really hoped he didn't have to dig through those.

To add even more confusion to the lack of organization, the bookshelves, while tidy enough themselves and seemingly having all similar books together (that weren't on desks or on the floor), didn't have anything written on them. The shelves, that is.

Nothing to identify what the books they held in each section were about, which would have helped immensely. There was no way to tell by just looking at them which subjects they housed, so Allen had to check the spines to learn about the shelf's contents.

Thinking that it would behoove him to try reading a book on bringing people back to life, Allen stepped towards the closest shelf and proceeded to look for books relating to death. He saw a shelf of cooking books, a large amount of healing books, and some anatomy books following that.

Allen may have had to open one of the books to know what "anatomy" was; his knowledge of complex words was a little bit spotty, weird as it seemed. At first, the silver haired boy was excited, thinking that these anatomy books might be able to help him, but that quickly cooled off.

Anatomy was about the structure of either living humans' bodies or the bodies of the dead; he doubted it would have something written on someone who was both. He put the book back and glanced at the next bit of shelving, which he promptly skipped and went over to the next section; he recognized it as the gardening books he'd thoroughly looked over during an earlier trip.

Things went on like that, with him stopping at each shelf and evaluating its contents. Once or twice more, he would recognize a section he''d looked over well enough before, but most of the library was still new to him.

Allen hadn't been feeling hopeful before starting his search that it would be over quickly, but he couldn't help feeling tired after having gone through three-quarters of a library and with probably half an hour behind him. That's when he found himself standing in front of a very familiar section of books: the monster species anthologies.

He was about to pass by that section too, when he noticed something he hadn't noticed before.

All of the shelves were so full that any spots where a book was missing really stood out, making Allen think that the piles of books in the rest of the library was overflow. It was only after going through the rest of the library and identifying this fact that Allen was able to realize that a book was missing from the monster section.

Not one that he'd read, the spot had been open the last time he'd been there, he just hadn't realized that a related book wasn't there.

. . .

He couldn't help but wonder where it was.

The next morning, Allen was woken up by the sun coming in through the window, Allen having forgotten to close the curtains the previous night. Since it was pitch black outside every night, it was easy to do that.

At least he wasn't as sensitive to the sun the way Lavi was and the brightness of it was lessened by the light fog that seemed to be ever-present each day.

Allen groggily pulled himself out of his large bed, went over to the window for a short look outside, and then changed into a new outfit for the day. It was the semblance of a routine that he'd somewhat settled into in the time he'd been there. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he always wanted to get a quick look outside each morning when he woke up.

After changing, Allen found himself faced with the problem he's dealt with basically every day since he'd woken up in the lab, what to do for that day. Barring perhaps the first day, Allen had no particular purpose to his days. No hobbies besides reading and few ideas on how to answer the many questions he'd had.

In lieu of finding a concrete answer on what to do for the whole day, Allen turned to the book he'd placed beside himself on the bed before going to sleep late last night and laid back down on the bed. He hadn't really managed to read more than the first page of the book before he'd felt himself getting tired, but he _was_ excited to read what was in it.

The book was the only one he'd managed to find that related directly to bringing back the dead, which was strange; he'd felt sure that there would be more, given the situation.

. . . Perhaps they were in those piles.

Anyway, the book was a large, black one with dark vines woven into the cover that wound around to the spine. On the front of the book, the title was simply: _The Lost and Dark Art of Necromancy. _

The first page of the book didn't say much about how necromancy was supposed to work, but Allen did feel it gave a good introduction to what Necromancy _is_. Apparently, necromancy was any kind of magic used to summon the spirits of the dead.

The most well known use of it was to raise them from death, but Allen was surprised to read that it is most often used by Necromancers to communicate with the dead in order to tell the future or get further information about past events.

A person's soul, once recovered in this way, could rarely be placed into a body that was not their own.

"Ahem." Some aggressively cleared their throat to get his attention and they certainly did that.

"AH!" Allen cried out in surprise as he toppled off the bed, crashing painfully onto the floor. Groaning and massaging the shoulder that got the brunt of the fall, Allen peeked his head over the bed to see who was standing in the open doorway, not surprised in the least to see that it was Kanda.

Kanda glanced intensely at the book of Necromancy that Allen had dropped on the bed, before glancing disinterestedly towards the boy. "Get up, we're going down for breakfast." He turned on his heel and made to leave.

"Uh, wait! Why?" Allen struggled to stand up and call out to him before the taller man left.

It worked, Kanda's steps halted and he looked over his shoulder. "Don't tell me you've eaten already." The dark eyes looked him up and down critically and Allen had to fight the instinctual urge to hide back behind the bed. "You don't look like you've been awake that long."

"I-I haven't." Allen found himself answering before he really knew what he thought about it. "But why are we eating breakfast together today? We haven't before."

It took Allen a second to realize Kanda was looking at him like he was an idiot for what he'd just said. It looked so similar to how he always looked at him! "I said that we were going to spend several hours a day together starting today. You do remember that, right?" The demon reminded him.

No, he hadn't remembered that and Allen blushed at the reminder. "Oh, right! Sorry, Kanda, I'll be down in a minute!"

"No, you won't. We're walking down there together right now. Hurry up." The demon ordered. This time, he really went off down the hall, leaving Allen to stumble hurriedly after him to keep up.

Breakfast was initially not the . . . easiest affair to get through. Allen was used to going down to the kitchen and seeing what there was to eat or otherwise sometimes finding a meal put together by Lavi before the vampire went to sleep.

Kanda instead stopped when they got to the dining room and sat at the large table. That brought Allen's attention to the contents of the table. At the head of the table, where Kanda had sat himself down, was a large bottle that looked like it should hold alcohol and a delicate glass goblet for him to pour it in. Behind them was a large but elegant plate with a kind of meat in sauce on it.

On the opposite end of the lengthy table was a beautiful plate and bowl and set of cutlery. The plate was small and held a kind of roast meat, while the larger bowl had a thick orange soup with red flecks in it. A glass goblet of water was next to it.

Allen was already looking between the place set out for Kanda and the place presumably set out for him in confusion. Why were they so far apart? _Well_. He collected himself, straightening his shoulders. _That won't do. _

And with that, Allen proceeded to that end of the table and picked up the plate in one hand, utensils in the other. For once, Allen moved swiftly, getting down to the other side of the table and placing both handfuls onto the spot next to Kanda.

The demon, who was pouring a deep red liquid that smelled strongly of alcohol, stopped to look at him with slightly wide eyes as Allen went back for the rest of it. The boy picked up the bowl and cup and placed them with the plate and utensils, then sat down in the seat himself.

Allen hadn't even had the chance to have a bite of the food he knew from experience would be tasty, before he felt the prickling of eyes on him. He didn't have to guess where it came from and looked up to see Kanda looking at him in curiosity with a dark eyebrow raised.

"What?" Allen asked.

"What are you doing?" Kanda asked, sounding incredulous but not mad.

"Moving my food." Allen responded simply. "It was too far away." So saying, he picked up a utensil and spooned up some of the speckled soup. The food Lavi sometimes left out for him was always better than the food Allen put together himself and true to form, the soup was delicious.

"It wasn't, that's where you're supposed to sit." Kanda informed him.

"No, it's not." Allen disagreed, but made sure to keep his voice light. He didn't want to sound confrontational and invite an argument like the first one they'd had. Then he added, "I'm supposed to be your 'lover', aren't I? My place is next to you."

That's how he thought it should be, anyway. He didn't know much about the topic, but it felt right.

Kanda looked at him for a moment longer, both eyebrows raised now. He looked surprised. The demon looked like he was going to say something for a minute but instead huffed and turned his attention to his drink instead.

Allen smiled lightly, taking it as the permission it was. He started to eat, too. They ate their food quietly for a time before Allen found himself curious again.

"What are we eating, Kanda?" The boy asked, turning again to the older man.

"That depends." Kanda replied with his eyes closed, placing his glass down. "You are eating beef tripe soup with lamb. I'm having wine and human meat that's been preserved since my last hunt." The demon nonchalantly spoke.

Allen's breath caught in his throat violently and he could only be glad that he hadn't been eating or drinking anything at the moment. "You're eating _human meat_?" He repeated, his voice not even attempting to hide how startled he was by this information.

"Yes." Kanda stated, opening his eyes to give Allen a look. "I'm aware you don't know much about demons but we feed on humans."

"I-but-" He couldn't get anything out, his mind roiling too hard. He must have looked truly pathetic because Kanda _actually_ took the initiative to speak again.

"You're aware that vampires feed off of humans too, but you don't have a problem with him." Kanda pointed out.

"I-Well, yes, but that's-" _That's blood. _It was not a winning argument, Allen realized, but he couldn't think of another one. It wasn't completely different, the different ways of feeding on humans. The thought of both made Allen a little uncomfortable, all the same.

But there was something so much more visceral and upsetting to eating human flesh that knowing Lavi drank their blood couldn't achieve. It was . . .

"Couldn't you eat something else?" Allen asked weakly, his voice trembling with his effort to get his emotions under control.

"Look, Beansprout, I can't eat anything besides humans for very long. I can eat the meat of other monsters, but not for an extended period of time. Creature meat not only tastes bad, but it doesn't have the nutrients I need to not die of some sort of deficiency. Now if that's all, get back to eating. We've got more to do today."

And Allen tried, he really did, but even as he forced himself to go back to eating, he couldn't take his eyes off of Kanda's plate. He flinched every time the demon went for another bite. Given his reactions, it wasn't surprising that it didn't take Kanda long to notice that the boy wasn't okay.

What was surprising was the other man's reaction. Upon realizing that Allen wasn't going to be alright with this anytime soon, the demon put down his fork mid-bite and sighed deeply. Then with only a hint of reluctance, he tipped his plate and slid the remaining meat into his goblet, topped it off with more wine, and chugged the whole thing down on one go.

The silver haired boy was left staring with his mouth open as the demon put down the empty glass with a huff and wiped his mouth. Allen was just opening and closing his mouth, trying to find his words when the demon spoke for him.

"Happy now?" He asked pointedly, his dark eyes glancing at him.

"Huh?" Allen let out, unintelligently.

Then the demon _actually rolled his eyes_ at him, of all things and said something even more unbelievable! "I did that for you, so you had better appreciate it and actually finish your own food."

_Oh. _He got it now.

Kanda . . . Kanda had thought of a way to finish his food quickly and in a way where he wouldn't see the meat . . . so _Allen _would be comfortable. That . . . he hadn't expected that. It was thoughtful.

Allen felt that warm feeling in his stomach again, briefly before he again tried to ignore its presence. "Thank you, Kanda." Allen found himself smiling at the demon as he thanked him.

Now it was Kanda's turn to stare at his lover with his mouth hanging open, before awkwardly clearing his throat. "Just make sure to eat all of your breakfast so that I didn't do that for nothing." He ordered, his voice softer than before and his face undeniably embarrassed.

Allen smiled widely.

"Yes, Kanda."


	19. First Steps

Breakfast progressed with Allen slowly getting his appetite back and making good work of his food, while Kanda eventually refilled his wine glass and slowly took sips of it.

They didn't talk again at all until they were both finished but it wasn't . . . bad. If anything, it felt _really _good. Allen was used to his interactions with Kanda being, if not confrontational, then emotionally taxing.

Although this last conversation was leagues better than anything he'd been expecting, it was still a lot for him to process. Maybe living with a demon was just a lot, the other having needs that were so strange to him and all?

The quiet following their talk was just the cool down Allen needed to orient himself again. It was actually weird in its own way; he'd been becoming used to not getting that deep sense of relaxation when he wasn't alone.

Even being around Lavi, who was much more mild-mannered when compared to _Kanda_, didn't make him feel safe enough to decompress. He wasn't used to this . . . this silent comfort. Because that's what it was.

Kanda was the kind of person who could make you feel his disappointment without even needing to look at you. It seemed to Allen now that he could also project a sense of quiet acceptance when he wanted to, as well.

Quiet acceptance . . . it had Allen almost lulled into a meditative state by the time breakfast was over. And by that time, Allen was ready to talk again. "Isn't this food a little strange to eat for breakfast? Shouldn't soup and meat be more like dinner and replaced with something else in the morning?" The silver haired boy found himself asking.

Kanda looked up from his glass with an eyebrow raised. "In favor of what?" His tone sounded in part incredulous and partly curious.

Allen opened his mouth to reply, only for the non-existent words to get caught in his throat. He supposed . . . he didn't know. It was something that just felt right to say, but he didn't know why.

Kanda took a few seconds of his silence before inquiring, "What's wrong, got an Aswang tongue?"

"An Aswang wha-? No, I ju-I just don't know how to answer." Allen replied, confused.

"Isn't that what I said?" Kanda idly replied, sounding vaguely amused for a moment. He continued without waiting. "Why can you not answer?"

"Well, I suppose that when I said that, I didn't actually have an idea of something else in mind." Allen answered with more confidence this time. "I get these feelings sometimes. I say or feel something and I think there's a reason, but I don't know it."

"Hmm." Kanda let out a contemplative hum. "Does this have anything to do with your past life? The one you were wondering if you should pursue last night? If you're done eating, then let's go."

"Oh, uh yeah! Let's go." It took Allen a second to follow Kanda's thought process before agreeing and standing from his chair. "Uh, shouldn't we clean up?" Allen asked when he saw Kanda move to leave the table with the plates and glasses still on it.

"Of course not, that's the Rabbit's job. He'll clean it up when he wakes." Kanda peered over his shoulder at the shorter boy. ". . . Don't tell me you've been cleaning up after yourself this whole time, even when he cooks for you?"

"Um . . . yes . . . was I not supposed to?" Allen asked, confused.

"You weren't." Kanda answered, mildly. "But I'm sure the Rabbit doesn't care, regardless. For future reference, know that you don't have to do that. He's the servant, it's his job to keep the place tidy, not yours."

"Oh, okay . . . I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that, though. What if I want to do it?" He asked.

Kanda huffed. "You can do whatever you want with your free time. I only care about what you do when you're with me." The demon replied as they exited the room.

"And when I'm with you?" He pushed.

"Act like a lover." Was the short reply from the demon.

_Act like a lover, huh? _Allen thought, moving his hand. The boy began to wrap his hand around one of the demon's, but Kanda snatched it away before the action was completed.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kanda demanded while looking at him, sounding both irritated and surprised.

Allen stared back at him steadily, feeling far more comfortable with the other man now. "Act like a lover, you said? Don't they do things like this?"

It was all Allen knew about this sort of thing. He suspected he hadn't enough experience or knowledge of it in his previous life, either. It still felt right, though. Natural. Like something he _should_ be doing, if a lover was what he wanted to be. Maybe Kanda didn't know much about it, too.

The demon watched him closely for a moment and Allen returned it. He watched as the look in the demon's eyes changed from one that was sizing him up to something different. He didn't know how to explain the new look in those dark blue eyes, except that they had more _give_ in them.

It felt like permission and that feeling was validated when, without giving him a chance to move, the other man slightly held his hand out with his palm slightly open. Allen slowly but happily reached for it and wrapped his hand as firmly as he could around Kanda's hand and felt the long, thin fingers of the other.

"Thank you." Allen said, feeling thankful although he couldn't say what for. Evidently, the feeling was mutual.

"What exactly are you thanking me for, Beansprout?" Kanda asked as they started walking again.

"I really don't know." Allen shared his thoughts calmly. "Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Beansprout?"

"Yeah, my name is Allen." The boy would deny to his second dying day that his voice took on a whiny note there.

"I know that." Kanda returned with annoyance. "How dull do you believe me to be-don't answer that question." The demon added the last order almost before he'd finished the previous sentence and Allen had to stop himself cracking a smile.

Which wasn't easy to do, by the way. Unlike Kanda, he didn't seem to be naturally very good at hiding what he was thinking or feeling at any given time. He wondered if it was a learned behavior.

"So . . ." Allen drew the word out, now in better spirits. "Why do you keep calling me that . . . thing?"

Kanda scoffed. "Bean sprouts are a type of food from my homeland. They are as they sound, sprouted beans."

"Oh, so you are saying I'm tasty, then?" The silver haired boy asked, wondering if the demon thought of him, in some small way, as food and also what relationship a flesh-eating demon with bean sprouts anyway.

A brief choking sound brought Allen's attention to Kanda's face and he blinked in astonishment. The demon wore an expression of shock on his suddenly now very expressive features . . . and a light dusting of pink on each of his high cheekbones. It would have been barely perceptible if not for the almost white pallor of Kanda's skin, making the very light color stand out brightly.

"Kanda?" Allen questioned, worried. "What's wrong?"

Kanda cleared his throat and shook his head. 'Nothing, it's nothing. Let's keep going." He insisted, tightening his loosened grip on Allen's hand and using it to tug the boy along.

Allen wasn't sure what it was he said, but it seemed to make Kanda uncomfortable as well as surprised him, and so Allen would take a break from it, whatever it was. On the bright side, the demon's residual embarrassment meant that, for a time, he stared determinedly ahead at the hallways as they walked, refusing to look at Allen's face.

This gave said boy a nice grace period to watch _Kanda's _face.

His features were oddly peaceful in spite of his obvious leftover discomfort and while not completely calm, it was an already astounding expression given who it was being worn by. Even when not apparently angry at anying, Kanda's eyebrows were nearly always deeply furrowed, giving off the impression that he was glaring at the floor or furniture.

It was strange . . . but nice. Very nice. He liked Kanda when he looked like this-His cheeks felt hot. He turned away from the thought before the nervous feeling in his chest got worse.

It was a short walk to the front door of the mansion, considering that the dining area was on the first floor. It was at the point that they were approaching the door that Allen thought to ask, "Where are we going? What are we going to be doing there?"

Maybe they were going back to the forest.

While a spark of concern went through him at the thought as he remembered the frighteningly desolate forest and vicious attack, he felt more excitement at the concept than anything. He actually liked the idea that he could go back to the forest and take another, better look around. This time, with Kanda.

"We're just going out to the front yard, don't get excited." Kanda replied, reaching his hand out and swinging the door open.

"What's in the front yard?" Allen asked curiously. He's pretty sure he didn't see anything special there when he'd walked through it on the way to the forest the day before.

"We'll be, in a second. Other than that, nothing." The demon replied nimbly, not looking at him.

"Then why are we going there?" Allen insistently asked, slightly exasperated by the roundabout answers from his . . . lover.

"We're going to meditate. It's what I do each morning after breakfast." Kanda replied, stepping out onto the lawn. The crisp grass crunched underneath his boots.

"Meditate?" Allen inquired, the unfamiliar to him.

"Yes, for at least an hour." Kanda replied, misunderstanding him.

Allen laughed lightly to hide his nervousness. "I actually meant . . . what is that, exactly?"

Kanda slid a brief look at him before tugging him over to a spacious piece of grass that had a decent distance between it and the mansion walls but wasn't farther than the pathway to the forest. Kanda sat on the ground then, crossing his legs and straightening his back.

"It's a practice from my homeland that involves sitting on the ground almost motionlessly and taking deep, steady breaths. It's a time to let go of all your thoughts and cleanse your mind." When Allen just looked at him in bewilderment, Kanda raised an eyebrow at him and gave him a _look_ until he did.

The boy tried to mimic the way the demon positioned himself, crossing his legs and straightening his back as much as he could. Glancing over, he saw that Kanda's eyes were closed. Allen tried to match the rhythmic breathing, but didn't close his eyes instead choosing to stare at the silent forest entrance a short ways off.

The two spent a short half-minute like this, with Kanda seemingly drifting away to a far-off place and Allen being unsure how to follow him there. Then, surprise of surprises, Kanda suddenly spoke.

It was a quiet and peaceful tone coming from the other man, but it still came so much out of nowhere that Allen nearly yelped loudly and toppled over.

"It's a good way to start the morning." Kanda had said.

"W-What is?" Allen stuttered out in the midst of the aftershocks of his surprise.

A short pause. Kanda slowly slid one of his eyes open, gave Allen a look that told him to _stop being an idiot_, and then slid it back closed as he deigned to reply.

"The meditation." He stated, like Allen should have known that without asking and . . . oh, well yes, he probably should have guessed that. Too late by then, though.

The boy gathered himself up another question that might not make him sound like a dullard and slid a look over at the close-eyed man. "I see. Do you do meditation every morning?" He asked.

"Nearly so." Kanda replied. "I meditate every morning after breakfast, so long as it hasn't rained previously."

"Oh." Allen muttered, looking down at the grass beneath him. Yes, this position on the ground would likely be far more annoying if the grass rubbing against him was damp and he had to worry about water soaking through his clothing. "Why-"

The boy started to ask his next question, but when he looked back up at the other man as he spoke, he forcefully stopped himself.

Kanda looked so calm . . . that's right. This was his meditation time. His moment to use the quiet to clear his thoughts or something. He shouldn't keep disturbing him with all of these constant questions.

Allen turned his head back in the direction of the forest, this time closing his eyes, and focused his attention on pulling in a deep breath. He tried to pull it in slowly and let it out in the same manner, that was the way Kanda had appeared to be doing it, but he was having some difficulty.

He could breathe just fine normally, but when he had to take control of his breaths in this weirdly precise way, he found his breaths coming up short and coming out too quick, like puffs. Nothing like the steady rhythm Kanda had quickly produced. "What were you going to say?" Kanda's voice distracted him.

It was again unexpected, but less of a surprise this time and Allen opened his light blue eyes to meet the demon's. "It's nothing." Allen insisted lightly as he shifted uncomfortably. "I don't want to bother you now." Kanda let out an annoyed huff. Allen winced, thinking he had already managed to do just that.

Until, "Your questions are not a bother." Kanda stated surely and Allen found himself looking at the older man in surprise.

"Are you sure?" Allen asked, himself unsure of what to do with this information.

Kanda looked vaguely uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading, not unlike just after breakfast, but still proceeded to roll his eyes and answer him. "Yes, I'm sure. For some reasons, I actually find your incessant questions pleasant." He glanced towards the opposite direction of Allen then with what the boy could only describe as a _pout _on his lips.

Given that it was Kanda, the pout was still more intimidating than if it was being worn by someone else, but it was still cute. Allen thought it was cute. He let out a very small snicker, which he hurriedly choked off into coughs when Kanda's eyes snapped back towards him with a look of warning in them.

"So . . ." Allen drew off, clearing his throat and trying not to crack a smile again. He was sure the man's eagle-eyes would see the slightest _twitch _of his lips if he did. "Why do you find my questions entertaining?" What better way to entertain his lover than with more questions?

"I don't know." Kanda huffed in irritation, his cheeks were slightly brighter again.

The man thought for a second. "I suppose it's the process, as well as the freshness of it that I like so much. There aren't many new individuals near me who can ask questions. I haven't had to answer many questions in my whole life.

As for the process of it, well . . . it's not an unpleasant feeling: Being asked questions, providing answers, being confronted with your genuine curiosity about it. As I said, not unpleasant."

Allen soaked up this explanation, blinking at him. _Well, that was one way of looking at it._ The demon apparently grew uncomfortable with this stare and looked away. Allen blinked and then smiled brightly. "So what do you do with your mornings when it's rained and you don't meditate?"

Kanda hummed lowly as he thought. "I'll usually stay in my quarters and look out the window in contemplation, but it does the same job." He answered.

"And what do you do afterwards?" Allen asked readily. "What does the rest of your day look like? I don't normally see you, even though we're awake during about the same times. Though I admit I do mostly inhabit my room, the library, and the kitchen. If you aren't normally in those places, I'm not surprised I don't see you."

"I do a good deal of reading." Kanda answered. "But mostly books I've brought back to my quarters. I don't spend hours inside the library reading and researching books like I'm given to understand you do. Other than that, I hunt."

Allen felt uneasy with how long he ended up waiting for Kanda to continue before he realized he wasn't going to. "You mean . . . that is all you do with your days? There's not anything else?" He couldn't understand this!

And he thought _his_ days felt empty.

"There are some other small things I may do some days, but that is mostly it. Nothing else requires my attention." Kanda replied calmly, as if he couldn't understand what else he would want to do.

"But surely you don't need to hunt for food every day? By . . . By how much you ate at breakfast, I don't think you could possibly eat so much each day that would require hunting!" Allen found himself horrified by the idea that Kanda might not even do both of the _two things_ he listed per day.

Kanda shook his head. "It's true, I don't hunt humans that often, but I do hunt for creatures in the surrounding area. This includes trespassing humans every now and again, but it is mostly monsters. The act ensures none of them get too bold and it keeps my skills sharp." He informed Allen of this nonchalantly and when he saw that Allen was deep in thought about it, Kanda closed his eyes and went back to his meditation.

Allen stayed sitting beside him, not feeling tranquil in the least. _Still _. . . Allen thought, watching the other man with unseen sadness in his eyes.

_You may at least hunt every day but still . . . it still feels - it sounds . . . so lonely. _


End file.
